This is part of a series of profiles of institutions that have unbundled or canceled big deal contracts. The aim is to provide insight, lessons learned, and inspiration to others considering a similar move.
Summary
On December 31, 2020, East Carolina University exercised its early termination clause and unbundled from its Elsevier big deal. Instead of spending $1.4 million, ECU now pays about $355,000 to provide access to 122 individual titles, netting an annual savings for the institution of approximately $1 million a year. The decision was broadly supported by faculty and has helped to raise awareness about the unsustainability of the publishing environment.
Preparation
ECU began to discuss ending its contract with Elsevier in 2018. The unbundling effort was led by Jan Lewis, who has been with the university for 25 years and is Director of the Main Campus Library.
As Elsevier increased the price of its subscription package, Lewis said the university did not have the money to cover the cost. She and health sciences library director Beth Ketterman formed a small group to explore options for exiting the big deal, enlisting the help of the collections and scholarly communication librarian. “We kept it small and nimble,” Lewis said. “In a number of conversations with Elsevier, we made it clear we weren’t changing our minds and we weren’t going to fall for or accept alternatives they offered us to get more money from us.”
Lewis and her library colleagues presented a document to the university’s top leadership about why to cancel the contract early. Then, the librarians made the case to the faculty senate, dean’s council and several college deans and department chairs, explaining why the change was needed and what would be offered in the place of the big deal.
“We spent a long time laying the groundwork and refining the way we presented the information to try to make it as clear and really as reassuring as possible to people,” Lewis said. “We cited examples—often using resources from SPARC—of others who had already done this to say, ‘Hey, life goes on.’”
Decisions, Outcomes, and Campus Reaction
At the end of 2020, ECU made the decision to unbundle its Elsevier contract. The decision was driven by economics, and the savings were substantial. With an annual collections budget of about $5.2 million, the Elsevier contract represented approximately 27% of their spend. Since ending the Elsevier contract, ECU estimates it saves about $1 million per year and that this savings will only increase over time when likely inflationary hikes are taken into consideration.
To replace their largest journal package, ECU focused on providing more sustainable options for accessing the same information. The library analyzed usage patterns with Unsub to anticipate needs once the contract was terminated. Based on this analysis, ECU pursued a variety of strategies to ensure their community could continue to access the resources they need.
The library informed the campus about Unpaywall and the OA Button to make publicly accessible articles easier to find. Faculty were encouraged to use InterLibrary Loan with turnaround times of less than 12 hours for 96% of requests, and ILL use has decreased over time since unbundling. ECU also set up on-demand article purchasing where immediate access was necessary. In addition to the 122 title-by-title subscriptions, ECU’s health sciences library continued to subscribe to ClinicalKey, which covers medical disciplines and nursing.
With the switch now well behind them, Lewis says there has been some increase in Copyright Clearance Center charges, but the cost hasn’t been significant. Similarly, there has not been a surge in ILL requests. Lewis said she anticipates faculty members are contacting authors directly to request PDFs of articles, finding open access versions of articles, or using the backfiles of Elsevier ejournals that the library still maintains.
While some faculty expressed concerns about losing the big deal at first, the library only heard a few complaints after the change.
“We were transparent,” said Lewis, who said the reservoir of trust she’s built with others on campus helped with the transition. “For people who saw us recommending this change, they realized that we had given it serious thought and truly believed it was the best thing for the university. More faculty have come to recognize the unsustainability of the publishing environment.” It was important, Lewis said, to make the transition so the approach to negotiations with publishers reflected the values of the institution.
Next Steps and Advice
Whenever she can, Lewis said she talks to faculty about the evolving publishing ecosystem. Communication and transparency have been critical at ECU. Understanding the bigger landscape has made the changes in the subscriptions more palatable, she said. She describes the collection now not by vendor name, but in reference to the number of databases and items available.
Since ECU was short on funds to meet the subscription cost, Lewis said, there is not a lot of money to reinvest. However, the library supports open publishing intiatives and is interested in supporting open infrastructure.
Lewis said there seems to be a generational change in acceptance to open publishing and a growing interest in digital scholarship projects. “There are a lot more researchers who come to us and want their research shared broadly, because it’s in public health or education, for example,” Lewis said. “They say, ‘I don’t want this just read by my peers in the profession. I want this to really make an impact and a difference.’ Talking about the higher citation rates and readership rates for open access materials really does resonate with people.”
The university’s new strategic plan emphasizes the impact of scholarship on the region. Lewis said she hopes that translates into impact and open practices being valued in tenure and promotion.
Lewis hopes the library can be a catalyst for more change in scholarly publishing. She added: “We are trying to move to more sustainable publishing options. This is truly a period of transition.”
In addition to Jan Lewis (Director of ECU’s Main Campus Library) and Beth Ketterman (Director of ECU’s Laupus Health Sciences Library), William Joseph Thomas (Assistant Director for Collections and Scholarly Communications) played a central role in implementing ECU’s decision to unbundle its Elsevier big deal.
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.