Virginia's Academic Library Consortium

Sustainable Journal Pricing Task Force

Background

Traditionally, when negotiating pricing for journals, libraries start from the offers made by publishers and vendors and negotiate from that point.  This approach has led to an inequitable and unsustainable environment for journal costs, disproportionately impacting library material budgets.  This imbalance forces libraries to regularly cancel databases, smaller independent press subscriptions, and book budgets to make room for the escalating costs of journals, particularly those that are part of “Big Deals” with the largest publishers.  With escalating inflation, eventually there will be nothing left for libraries to cancel to sustain these subscriptions.  The goal of creating a new model is to radically shift the way collection development is approached.  In the envisioned approach, negotiations start with a model that is reflective of VIVA’s consortial values and sustainable for member library budgets.  This work is expected to build on the past assessment work of VIVA, including the Value Metric Project. 

Charge

In the context of escalating inflation and flat library budgets, design a sustainable journal-pricing model that is built on VIVA collection development priorities with a focus on VIVA’s mission and the core values of the VIVA member libraries.  Potential factors that may be considered include those that describe published content, such as impact, usage, Open Access support, digital rights management and resource sharing restrictions, and faculty authorship, as well as the qualities that describe libraries, such as FTE, Carnegie Classification, and program level.  Apply this model to existing VIVA subscriptions and analyze the model’s sustainability with an eye toward the possibility of incorporating the model into an RFP for journal content.  Special attention should be given to the shifting nature of the Open Access landscape and the Read/Publish models increasingly found in other areas of the world. 

Task Force Members

Alison Armstrong
Radford University

Beth Blanton-Kent
University of Virginia

Georgie Donovan
College of William & Mary

Cheri Duncan
James Madison University

Summer Durrant
University of Mary Washington

Edward Lener
Virginia Tech

Tamara Remhof
Germanna Community College

Genya O'Gara
Virtual Library of Virginia

Anne Osterman
Virtual Library of Virginia