1. What’s the Big Deal? Counting What Counts Cathal McCauley
University Librarian, MU
LIR Annual Seminar, December 2018

2. Background 1997 MLIS thesis “Ownership Vs Access”
In academic and special libraries for 15+ years
University Librarian since 2008
Founding Director of the Irish University Libraries Collaboration Centre (IULCC) – current IReL vehicle
Co-chair of the national Elsevier Negotiating Group
One of the IUA’s representatives on IReL Review Steering Group
Irish representative on the EUA’s Big Deals Expert Group
Irish representative on Plan S implementation group convened by JISC
MU Library

3. Urgent need to change scholarly publishing
Costs soaring
Outlandish profit margins
Concentrated control of Top 5
Bad deal for tax payers and
other funders
In Ireland alone funding per
student down 50%
Distorts research – encourages bad practices
MU Library

4. Transformative Deals “Corridor of transformation” to full OA
Source:
“Corridor of transformation” to full OA
Transitional
Open Access
Transparent
Cost Constraining
Licensing/copyright important
See:
MU Library

5. The limitations of what we currently count
Measure the wrong things (at least when it comes to content deals)
Often misleading e.g. long tails
Not sure what is really being counted
Can lead to crude decisions
What is being missed OA and “other” sources of content
Publisher-centric and core to “Big Deals”
Source:
MU Library

6. What should we start counting?
Publication output by corresponding author
Publication output by title
Publication output by publisher
Access data i.e. Paywalled, OA (what type)
License types (% and trends)
Article Level Metrics (ALMs)
See:
Source:
MU Library

7. Areas for attention
Avoid repeating the mistakes of the past – publishers “vertically integrating”
Measures to link content spend to student/research success
Inform reward systems to link “open research” with academic progression
New collection strategies (access and evaluation)
Evolving role of e-resource librarians and other staff
Source:
MU Library

8. Cathal.McCauley@mu.ie @cathalmccauley
Go raibh maith agaibh
Thank You
@cathalmccauley
MU Library