1. OhioLINK – Reluctant but Successful – depending on your definition Orderly Retreat (Reduction) from the Electronic Journal Big Deal ICOLC Meeting Philadelphia, PA March 29, 2006 “Any new venture goes through the following stages: enthusiasm, complication, disillusionment, search for the guilty, punishment of the innocent, and decoration of those who did nothing.” Unknown

2. The OhioLINK Big Deal definition the subscription and purchase of full sets of publishers’ journals in electronic format and providing access to all member institutions. The purchase is a negotiated contract for a fixed period of years and at advantageous annual rates of cost increases

3. The OhioLINK Big Deal definition Includes almost all OL libraries – subscribers and non-subscribers to print Titles in the “full set” - includes titles which none of the libraries individually subscribe in print or electronic form Each library has access to the same expanded set of the publisher’s titles Flipped pricing model with deep discount print preferred

4. The OhioLINK Big Deal definition OhioLINK’s universities’ existing print subscriptions typically range from 10% to 55% of a publisher’s title list - average being only 20% to 25% coverage Thus 75% to 80% of the titles are new to each university. Each university’s patrons use 70% to 95% of the available Big Deal titles For small liberal arts colleges and community colleges much lower print subs – still greatly expanded use 15% to 35% of Big Deal titles which were not previously held by any library within OhioLINK are actively used

5. ???Single institution retreat when… Licensing electronically what it already had in print Specific incremental charge for each new title Logical and practical to simply compare the cost-versus-use on a title-level basis Titles deemed low value might then be discontinued to save the associated costs.

6. ???OhioLINK retreat when… Titles received were never held by the library or any library in the consortium Majority of titles used on any one campus were never held in print at that institution Ownership, use, and cost associations that might work for a single institution no longer work in an OL Big Deal Title covered under an OL Big Deal has no campus-by-campus selection basis Benefits to the participating libraries are so increased and the available collection departs so dramatically from the traditional title-by-title subscriptions held by each

7. OhioLINK’s orderly retreat mechanism recognizes that OL: Agreed on a collective price for a broad collection of titles Stimulated a great deal of use both on titles previously held in print and those not previously held Created a new cohesive group collection and economic relationship that supersede individual institutional relationships with the publisher

8. OhioLINK’s orderly retreat mechanism recognizes that OL: Needs a mechanism allowing for the incremental attrition of content and annual cost without a crisis or destroying the essential benefits to both parties Needs a mechanism that should reinforce the concept of the Big Deal as a means to access the maximum publisher’s content affordably Needs to use a concrete measure of relative value - the number of uses (downloads) –use is not the only measure of value, but to fail to recognize use as the dominant starting point is to deny reality.

9. The Mechanism Itself Allows for an annual reduction from the next year’s planned license value by an amount equivalent to the percentage of use that titles selected for discontinuation represent Example –Discontinued electronic access to titles representing 2% of the use will result in a reduced value of the group license by 2% –This reduced value then becomes the new basis on which future annual license increases are calculated –Can be used before the start of each subscription year based on the latest annual active title usage distribution –Reductions are permanent unless we use the reverse provision that provides the price formula to reinstate receipt of current issues and back files of previously discontinued titles.

10. Cost for Content (C-F-C) Action State funding mandated reductions Reduced commitments below contract amount to both Springer and Blackwell by 4% in 2005 Chose lowest used titles with a few exceptions for newer titles Blackwell this constituted 144 of 573 - 25.1% active titles Springer this constituted 346 of 1056 – 32.8% active titles Impact in the aggregate Impact at the institutional level

13. Group level title use ranks are stable Example: Springer 929 titles with use in each of 5 years 2001-2004

14. Group level title use ranks are stable Example: Wiley 298 titles with use in each of 5 years F2001-2005

15. Institutional Impact of C-F-C

16. C–F–C Observations Preferable to not having a clause – What would we have done otherwise? Under our group dynamics what other mechanism might work and be acceptable to publishers? Publishers have a choice to avoid C-F-C Lower annual license % increase reduces need for/impact of C-F-C No significant problems on campuses after first C-F-C actions