Are ‘Big Deals’ Actually Good Deals?

Cost is the No. 1 reason why colleges end their “big deals” with publishers, but not everyone thinks the agreements are really that expensive. Kent Anderson, CEO of publishing and data analytics company RedLink, has argued that the subscription model is actually “pretty efficient” for institutions. According to Roger Schonfeld, director of the libraries, scholarly communication and museums program at Ithaka S+R, the rise in open-access publishing has decreased the value of subscription deals as more content is available for free. To conclude, he thinks that the big deal as a bundled subscription model is definitely under threat.