Welcome to "No Big Deal?": News and Links About the Cost, Value, and Sustainability of Big Journal Bundles

"Today we are launching No Big Deal?, a new feature of UVA Library News that will track the latest events and scholarship about the biggest vendors serving research libraries like ours. Tracking, shaping, and responding to this landscape has always been part of what the Library does, and we would like to share some of what we are seeing, doing, and thinking with you, the faculty, students, and researchers who use our collections.

Big changes are shaking up the way research libraries around the world think about the biggest line items in our budgets, the journal bundles we call “Big Deals.” In particular, we’re following stories about libraries pushing back and even walking away completely from unsustainable deals. Increasingly bold initiatives abroad, from research funders and national-level university groups like those in Germany, Sweden, Norway, and France, also merit attention. Global efforts to expand open access and contain subscription costs are sure to affect the ecosystem in the US...."