Digital Licenses Replace Print Prices as Accurate Reflection of Real Journal Costs by Paula Gantz, Association of American Publishers – Scholarly Publishing Division, Volume 11, No. 3, Summer/Fall 2012
“Instead of purchasing subscriptions to individual journals, librarians are pursuing licensing agreements that provide perpetual digital access to a body of content. For major institutions with research needs across multiple disciplines, this means purchasing journal bundles or packages. At one end of the spectrum is the so-called Big Deal (i.e., licensing all the journal content a publisher distributes digitally). For smaller institutions, bundles allow licensing for collections of titles, based on particular subject concentrations or interest profiles. As a rule, these institutional commitments span a several-year period providing modest price increases based on anticipated inflation and content growth, but usually below the increases reflected in individual print subscription prices.”
