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 2019, the UConn Library faced $2.5 million in budget cuts. Instead of more staff cuts, or a piecemeal approach, UConn made the decision to unbundle from all of its big deals as each came up for renewal. Dean of UConn Library, Anne Langley, enlisted the support of her provost and then worked with 40 faculty members and others on the Future of Journals Project. With the group’s unanimous endorsement, UConn began to end its big deals with seven publishers including Springer Nature, Cambridge, and Elsevier. Since 2020, the university’s typical $4 million journal spend has been reduced by $1.5 million. For faculty and graduate students, turnaround time is less than ten seconds for 97% of requests, and undergraduates receive requested articles within 24 hours.
Preparation
At every institution where Anne Langley has previously served (University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Duke, North Carolina State, Princeton, and Penn State), she has been involved with journal cancellations and advocated for open access. “At UConn, it was really about the budget. It was economics driving the bus,” she said.
Langley met with the provost to explain the library’s proposed approach to its financial predicament, potential savings, and commitment to providing timely access to articles upon request. The library staff leveraged Unsub to analyze usage patterns and prepare for providing access outside of big deals. The data provided evidence that many articles were already available in open access and helped with forecasting predictable service costs. It was difficult to know how much of the Unsub information to share generally, but library leaders confirmed it was helpful in these discussions.
Based on this assessment, the library proposed that UConn get out of every bundled contract as it came up for renewal and subscribe only to the journals that made use and economic sense, providing means to continue to provide access to the articles users need.
The university’s administration was immediately on board and invited faculty members from various disciplines to review the proposal, meeting virtually for six weeks from November 2020 to January 2021. “We had people from medieval history to neurological sciences, including 40 faculty, two graduate students, and a postdoc,” Langley said. “We started out by saying: ‘We don’t have the money to pay for all these journals. We want to switch to a model where you can request what you need. Our hope is that you’ll help us come up with those requirements and allow us to do this in a pilot mode.’”
The meetings were filled with a range of questions that were all posed and answered through a running Google Doc. In the end, the Future of Journals Project unanimously voted in favor of the plan to unbundle over five years – a welcome surprise to the library staff involved in the process.
Decision, Outcomes, and Campus Response
Because of the upfront consultation with faculty, there was very little negative feedback once the library began canceling its big deals. The library received just five complaints from its 10,000 faculty members. “The reaction has been overwhelmingly supportive,” Langley said. The provost continued to provide strong support for the new system for accessing journal articles, demonstrating new workflows to the faculty senate and deans.
There was an intentional effort not to refer to the transition as “canceling,” said Langley, but rather merely a change in the model for getting articles. She often used an analogy for faculty that a big deal was like paying every year to access an entire grocery store, when all you need is the dairy section or a carton of milk whenever you need it.
The first bundle dropped was with Springer Nature in 2020, followed by Cambridge and others as the contracts expired. In January 2023, UConn ended its big deal with Elsevier. The university took advantage of offers by publishers to renegotiate during the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerating the process.
Having purchased perpetual access and back files with Springer Nature and others made the transition easier and saved the library money in the long run.
UConn contracted with Article Galaxy Scholar (AGS) to manage requests for individual journal articles. For faculty and grad students requesting articles, 97 percent of the turnaround time is about ten seconds or less. Response to undergraduate students is within 24 hours. When a user requests an article, the software pre-populates the information and suggests other options as well as related articles. Additionally, AGS preferences open access articles, which saves costs.
As projected by Unsub, less than 5% of downloads turned into ILL requests. When there was pushback about one journal title, the library reassessed and subscribed to it again—a lesson in being flexible and responsive.
Since beginning to unbundle big deals in 2020, the library is now projecting to spend approximately $360,000 annually on article requests. Overall savings of $1.5 million are expected to increase over time, especially when considering the price hikes on larger contracts that the library now avoids.
Given UConn’s budgetary challenges, the library plans to reinvest the savings back into the library, focusing on improving patron services and hiring strategically instead of facing staff cuts.
In negotiating the contract changes, the library compared collections and worked with the UConn School of Law Library and the UConn Health Sciences Library. Yet, with the decentralized nature of the campus budgets, Langley said, the main campus library’s journal article access transition is not necessarily a workable model for other units.
Next Steps and Advice
Since faculty had input early on and helped design the article request system requirements, the switch at UConn has been smooth.
“When I talk to faculty, there can be an initial instinct to oppose the move, but then they see how fast it works and that they’ll still get what they want when they want it,” Langley said.
UConn’s leaders emphasize paying attention to communications and marketing first. Also, get stakeholders involved and listen to them. The backend logistics are the least problematic, while the minding the people aspect makes all the difference.
“Don’t be afraid to make bold decisions,” Langley said. “If we don’t have the money, then let’s be creative.”
UConn Library staff who helped to lead this work include Anne Langley, Jane Strudwick, Kristina Edwards, Alice Fairfield, Jean Cardinale, Roxanne Peck, Elisabeth Umpleby, Christine Richardson, Laurie Taylor, Sara Harrington, Susan Fowler, and Jessica de Perio Wittman.
UConn faculty and others contributed significantly to the effort, especially those who served on the Provost’s Library Advisory Committee and the Future of Journals Committee:
Brian Boecherer, Executive Director, Early College Programs
Thomas Briggs, PhD student, Department of Political Science
Jessica de Perio Wittman, Director/Associate Professor, UConn Law Library
Pamela Diggle, Department Head/Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Stuart Duncan, Director of Fellowship, Outreach, and Programming, The Graduate School
Kevin Fitzgerald, MPA student, Department of Public Policy
Anne Langley, Dean, UConn Library
Carl Lejuez, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Senjie Lin, Professor, Marine Sciences
Ruth Lucas, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing
Kevin McEvoy, Assistant Professor in Residence, Marketing
Grace Morris, Research Development Specialist, InCHIP
Roxanne Peck, AUL for Collections & Discovery, UConn Library
Sylvia Schafer, Professor, Department of History
Leslie Shor, Associate Dean, School of Engineering
Fiona Somerset, Professor, English/Literatures Cultures and Languages
Katherine Spinnato, Director of Academic Affairs, USG Academic Affairs
Olga Vinogradova, Professor, School of Pharmacy
Sandra Weller, Board of Trustee Professor, Molecular Biology and Biophysics
Lisa Williamson, DMA student, Music Department
Sarah Woulfin, Associate Professor, Educational Leadership
Steven Zinn, Department Head/Professor, Department of Animal Science
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.