While librarians always had an ambiguous relationship with the big deal, publishers have been very satisfied with its economic outcomes. The move to database-deals, encompassing ejournals, ebooks, and databases, pushes the boundaries even further – offering libraries unprecedented discounts while locking them in into high volume, multi-year deals.
What has been overlooked though is the impact the big deal had on the relationship between major publishers offering distribution services to smaller publishers and even more so to learned societies.
The presentation describes the effect for libraries, societies, and publishers, particularly their ability to make economically sensible decisions in the context of the big deal versus an independent distribution and services organization.
