Collection Development in the Era of Big Deals

Author-

Pyke, Aidan

Citation-

Mongeon, P., Siler, K., Archambault, A., Sugimoto, C., & Larivière, V. (2021). Collection Development in the Era of Big Deals. College & Research Libraries, 82(2), 219. doi:https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.82.2.219

Summary-

    Using data based on 28 different Canadian universities, the writers of this article observed the usage levels of journal subscriptions between different academic disciplines and platforms. From these observations, they found great variance between these disciplines and platforms in multiple institutions resulting in several economic inefficiencies in regards to the 'big deal' model of academic journal subscriptions in university libraries. Their study showed that a large portion of these journals were rarely used by library patrons, leaving the writers to suggest an alternative model based on usage levels and shared interest of patrons and staff. 

Opinions & Evaluation-

     With my own personal local academic library (the Knight Library at the University of Oregon) cancelling all print journal subscriptions due to budgetary reasons I can completely understand the motivation of this paper, and the evidence seems to back up my local academic library's decision to cut those subscriptions. Before reading this article I was a little unsure on why such cuts were necessary, but after looking at this article I can see why it had to be done and I would have made a similar choice if put into that position. Perhaps not all the of the print subscriptions needed to be cancelled, if the Knight library looked at the usage levels of their print journals as these writers suggest to do then maybe the ones most used would still be available to patrons who use such materials.