Université de Montréal Takes Bold Turn, Terminates Participation in Wiley Online Library License | Canadian Research Knowledge Network

"The increasing cost of staying current with new research has collided with the reality of spending cuts in the education budget, causing the Université de Montréal Library to take a bold turn and exit a Big Deal. The bold turn requires reconsideration of Big Deals because of their relatively large budget impact - 80% of the journals budget. Taking this decision means that they will make selective title purchases. According to Richard Dumont, General Director of Libraries, 'The Libraries cannot cope with annual cost increases required by publishers who, even today, despite the consortia discounts, range from 3% to 6% each year.' The first Big Deal agreement facing Université de Montréal in this budgetary crisis is the Wiley Online Library. 'We used the CRKN 'Big Deal Toolkit' and found it very helpful to evaluate the complex cost-benefit of this license, to aid in determining which subscriptions we would reinstate following termination, and to plan our exit. The California Digital Library methodology was also a great inspiration for us,' said Richard Dumont. The titles selected reflect: the importance of the periodical in the field, use of the title (article downloads, articles published by an author of the UdeM and articles cited by the author of the UdeM), and cost per use. An information campaign was conducted among members of the UdeM community. A website also outlines the entire process and refers to articles published in the University newspaper. Read the complete article package in French. Read the English translation. CRKN has translated one of these articles in English with permission of the author."