This is part of a series of profiles detailing the experiences of institutions that have unbundled or canceled big deal journal contracts. The aim of the series is to provide insights, lessons learned, and inspiration to libraries to consider a similar move.
Summary
In 2022, Bucknell University unbundled from its Elsevier big deal. The shift saves the library an estimated 40% of its spend with the publisher while continuing to provide access to the same resources the campus needs. Bucknell’s approach combined a frank assessment of unsustainable price increases with a broader conversation about the future of research communication and addressing information injustice. Faculty have been supportive of the change, and university administration highlighted the library’s solution as a strategic move to more effectively steward institutional resources.
Preparation
For Bucknell, the success of its approach to unbundling from Elsevier was informed by and built on the passage in 2011 of an institutional open access policy. While the open access policy met with some skepticism when originally proposed, university faculty ultimately approved it with a near-unanimous vote. That experience paved the way for how the library approached the move to unbundle from a big deal.
“That really showed us all the things to do ahead of time with education and outreach,” said Param Bedi, who is the Vice President for Library & Information Technology. “We need to listen to faculty members’ perspectives and bring them into the process and not just tell them what we’re doing.”
Bedi started the conversation with Bucknell Library and Information Technology’s university governance group, the Committee on Library Information Resources (CLIR). To demonstrate the unsustainability of continued price increases, the library projected the budget deficit it would face five years into the future. This deficit projection proved effective in getting the committee’s buy-in on the need for a different approach—particularly for Bucknell’s largest contract with Elsevier.
With support from CLIR chair and associate professor Kevin Gilmore, the library launched a Collection Development Sustainability Task Force “to explore the most cost-effective and equitable means of providing access to published information resources, to investigate alternatives to traditional publisher licenses such as open access, and to ensure the necessary support for teaching and research at Bucknell in a sustainable way.”
Through the task force’s work, Bucknell laid the foundation for how to approach providing access outside of a big deal and for communicating the need for a shift in collections strategy and how students and faculty would continue to be supported by the library.
The library used Unsub to assess the subscription package, identifying alternatives, analyzing usage data, and deciding which subscriptions to keep and which to drop. To provide continuity of access where cuts would be made, Bucknell planned to use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and, where possible, to leverage publicly available copies, with the potential to supplement these in the future using on-demand article purchasing if needed. Bucknell also joined RapidILL at this time to further improve ILL services and turnaround time.
Library administrators and task force members engaged with faculty throughout the process, meeting with the provost, deans, and academic department chairs, and academic department faculty liaisons to explain the library’s approach and the change that may result. The Library Student Advisory Group was also engaged in this process. The task force launched an accompanying website to post background information, updates, and toolkits.
A graphic from the Bucknell Access Toolkit showing overlapping means of access.
Discussions with faculty covered both continuity of access through more efficient mechanisms and the positive impact of making different purchasing decisions—for Bucknell and for the public interest.
“The proactivity and the fact that these conversations started happening in 2019 for projections that were five years out was really important for setting our communication strategy,” said Eloise Stevens, Bucknell’s now-former Scholarly Communications Officer. “It was a combination of thinking about long-term sustainability of our collections and talking with faculty who had worked with for-profit journals. They had experienced some of the excesses and were aware of the problematic surveillance that these companies are getting involved with.”
Through the task force’s work, faculty were told that the library was not taking away access, but rather that different ways to get articles—including additional investments in Interlibrary Loan—would replace the bundled package.
“Faculty really responded to the question of how we are using our power as an institution to support our on-campus researchers and also play a part in shifting the needle toward a more informationally just future,” Stevens said. The library also emphasized that savings from the big deal would be reinvested to make document delivery fast and reliable for the campus community.
Decision, Outcomes, and Campus Response
Based on Bucknell’s cost analysis, the library informed Elsevier of its intention to unbundle in the fall of 2021 and negotiated for a reduced selection of core titles.
When Bucknell unbundled, there was virtually no negative reaction on campus. “We were expecting our email to blow up, but it didn’t,” said Bedi. He credits advanced communication for the smooth transition, and, as questions arose, librarians pointed the faculty back to the information provided that had been clearly communicated in the lead up to the change. He also credits a robust project management plan for this, which included change management.
While some articles weren’t immediately available, the library put in place infrastructure to ensure requests were processed quickly—within eight hours. Another staff person was also hired to process ILL requests in anticipation of the increase in volume.
“Faculty have been very pleased with how fast the response has been, because of all the underlying processes that we changed and the staff who are making this happen,” Bedi said. “They are still getting the same service, so from a faculty standpoint, I think it’s a huge win.”
The library continues to reassess and track feedback so decisions going forward remain data informed. There is a possibility a budget line will be added to cover costs for on-demand individual article purchases, but there hasn’t been a need so far.
Bucknell is too early in the process to have definitive cost savings numbers, but Bedi anticipates a 40% reduction in spend on Elsevier journals. Going forward, this experience may be applied to reduce spend with other publishers.
In the months since unbundling from Elsevier, Bucknell’s university administration has highlighted the library’s work as a responsive approach to a chronic problem that will more effectively steward institutional resources.
Next Steps and Advice
As other campuses consider transitioning out of big deal contracts, Bedi suggests engaging the faculty early and making them part of the process. “That was key to our success,” Bedi said. “And be honest and upfront about how this is all going to play out.” When library leaders encountered questions where they didn’t immediately have the answers, they were able to leverage the experience of outside experts, such as SPARC, Bedi said.
The library’s unbundling process intentionally centered larger campus conversations about the future of scholarly communication. The alignment around values that resulted is now reflected in the library’s strategic plan and approach to supporting faculty. “We’re aligning our priorities to support faculty in not just the transition of finding information, but in thinking about their options and power as researchers through open access, public scholarship, and other forms of scholarly communication,” Stevens said.
“For many institutions, I think it would be a mistake to keep conversations about unbundling internal to the library,’” Bedi said. “If we make this a bigger conversation about information justice and open access and how this fits into the model of what universities are already doing—then it’s about sustaining excellence and our wider institutional mission.”
Bucknell library staff who helped to lead this work include Param Bedi, Eloise Stevens, Jason Snyder, Abby Brown, Kevin Gilmore (faculty), Katherine Furlong, Dan Heuer, Jim Van Fleet, and Toni Baylets-Holsinger. Kevin Gilmore, Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and chair of Bucknell’s Committee on Library and Information Resources, also contributed significantly to the effort.
Note: Those interested in investing funds saved from big deal contracts in open initiatives or in pursuing alternative access strategies to unbundle are invited to join the Strategic Priorities Working Group of SPARC’s Negotiation Community of Practice.