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
After learning they were paying a disproportionately high cost for their Elsevier package, Florida State University planned to negotiate a 25% cost reduction. As part of this plan, the library prepared to unbundle from its big deal if its terms were not met—analyzing data about campus needs, meeting with faculty to get their support for the potential move, and putting a plan into place for meeting needs without a big deal contract.
When Elsevier declined to meet its cost reduction targets, Florida State unbundled its big deal in December of 2018. This move achieved a 50% reduction in spend, saving nearly $1 million in the first year as a result. Both faculty and university administrators have been broadly supportive of the decision, which has significantly expanded the library’s budget flexibility and enabled it to make different resource investment decisions.
Preparation
To cope with rising journal prices, FSU began to examine its options in 2017. “Really, it was an issue of cost,” said Gale Etschmaier, dean of the university library. “Our costs were not sustainable for electronic resources across all of the different vendors.” FSU was spending about $2 million per year on a bundled contract with Elsevier and prices were increasing about 4% annually.
Subject librarians and technical services staff began to examine usage data for the various titles. In working with members of the faculty senate library committee, it became apparent that the library was not meeting the needs for some of the disciplines. The so-called big deal with Elsevier was consuming the collections budget, and faculty champions clearly recognized the excessive publisher profits.
FSU also discovered it was paying a disproportionate cost in the Elsevier statewide agreement and tried to negotiate that at the state level without any success. It was clear that the university was not going to be able to afford the anticipated cost hikes. Library leaders let Elsevier know that if the agreements couldn’t be modified to reduce costs (by 25%), FSU would have to walk away from the big deal.
Etschmaier said the university went into the negotiations with good faith, but the publisher’s data didn’t align with the library’s research. “Our Elsevier representatives were really trying to tell us that if we terminated the big deal, we would be spending a million dollars a year more on article costs,” she said. “Our data just didn’t correspond with what they were telling us.”
“I felt pretty confident we were not using all the titles,” Etschmaier said. “While I valued the content and still do, we felt we could use the cost savings to meet some of the identified needs of disciplines across the campus in a different way.”
Being visible in the campus community about the situation was vital preparation to ensure a smooth transition.
“It’s all about transparency and bringing the faculty into the discussion early,” Etschmaier said. “Having them help us with the problem of sustainability and having conversations with them, rather than just announcing it. We made sure that we collected and analyzed data and shared it in a way that was meaningful.”
In meetings with faculty, librarians explained the differences in price for subscribing to journals versus paying per article. In-person meetings were the most beneficial, Etschmaier said, because questions about the data could be addressed directly. Many faculty were shocked to learn about the publisher’s profit margins, which proved to be a helpful data point in generating campus support. While cost was at the core, the episode did lead to a broader conversation about open scholarship.
Decision, Outcomes, and Campus Response
Library leaders went back to faculty members to confirm their support, then terminated the big deal in December 2018. Since there had been so much preparation, Etschmaier said, there was no surprise or pushback following the decision. Once the contract was terminated, the FSU provost’s office coordinated and tightly controlled the communications plan of the news. The draft memo was reviewed at multiple levels and notification first went to the administration and library, then faculty and the general public.
In addition to its continuing title-by-title subscriptions, FSU leveraged a number of strategies for providing access to Elsevier content. In the first year, it purchased several tokens directly from the publisher at a discounted rate to access articles to which the campus no longer subscribed. FSU also used RapidILL and Reprint Desk to fulfill requests. Some faculty found needed articles from other campus sources, such as subscriptions in the FSU medical library.
Overall, scholars were able to access articles that the university library no longer subscribed to in a very short timeframe, Etschmaier said.
Throughout the transition, the library tracked what services were being used. It cleaned up its ILL service to make it even more efficient. By the second year, FSU decided the tokens from Elsevier were not worth purchasing.
Unbundling reduced FSU’s spending on Elsevier journals from $2 million to about $1 million after the first year – and the savings have consistently held at that amount every year since. Taking into account the larger price increases they would have faced with inflation, the total savings is even more.
Next Steps and Advice
While cost was at the core of FSU’s decision to unbundle, the episode has led to a broader conversation about open scholarship. There is growing demand on campus for faculty grants to publish openly, and the library is working to support disciplines that have embraced open practices.
A few months after ending the contract, FSU began to redirect some of its savings. The library made one-time purchases to support faculty requests for electronic materials—further demonstrating the tangible benefit of the decision to the campus community.
FSU has been agile and innovative in the process, attracting positive attention from campus leadership for doing the right thing in unbundling, Etschmaier said. Next, the library is planning to review its deals with other publishers, including Wiley and Springer Nature, in the future.
Etschmaier’s advice to other campuses considering a move away from large publisher contracts: “Don’t be afraid. Librarians know the usage of their collections. Have data collected, analyzed, and then share it with faculty early. Vendors want to keep their revenue up. But it is your responsibility to spend your budget allocations in the most responsible way you can.”
Florida State library staff who helped to lead this work include Julia Zimmerman (former dean of FSU Libraries) and Roy Ziegler (Associate Dean for Collections).
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.