We are economists who study the prices of academic journals.  Two of us maintain a website, journalprices.com that collects data on  journal prices, citations, and number of articles published and posts estimates of  value per dollar for each of about 7,000 journals.   With the advent of online publishing, many universities purchase their subscriptions from large publishers in the form of bundled site licenses allowing electronic access to nearly all of a publisher's subscription list at a price that depends on their historical expenditures on print journals from that publisher.  The University of Wisconsin librarian,   Ken Frazier, christened this system the "Big Deal".

Before the advent of electronic publishing, commercial publishers charged the same institutional subscription price for print subscriptions to all libraries, independently of their previous holdings. In this environment the "consumer economics" of selecting and maintaining a journal collection subject to a fixed budget was relatively simple.  With the Big Deal, librarians face a much more difficult problem.  Each library typically negotiates the terms of its own multi-year agreement with major publishers.  Prices and access  in the future will depend on historic expenditures and current cancellations,  Therefore the critical economic elements of bundled site license contracts are multi-dimensional,  with major dependence on details such as the terms under which the library can drop current subscriptions to individual journals,  caps on price increases during the term of the contract, and a variety of detailed fees assessed over time.   Because these contracts are highly variable, depending in part on the characteristics of universities and in part on the skill and persistence of library bargaining, it is important that we gather a large sample of contracts for economic analysis.

Many of the Big Deal contracts signed by universities have "confidentiality clauses" that state that the library must not share information contained in the contract. Fortunately,  most states have open records laws that invalidate such clauses and require state institutions including universities to make these contracts publicly available.   We have invoked these laws in requests to a large number of libraries throughout the United States.  In June, 2009, Elsevier contested our request for their contract with  Washington State University.  The judge ruled unequivocably in our favor and  we have received the requested contract from WSU. As of August 10, 2009 we have received copies of contracts from 36 institutions in 28 states.  We have been told that several more contracts are on the way.

The  Association of Research Libraries Board of Directors recently passed a resolution   "to strongly encourage ARL member libraries to refrain from signing agreements with publishers or vendors, either individually or through consortia, that include nondisclosure or confidentiality clauses."  This resolution also explicitly endorsed our project to collect and analyze university licenses with large publishers.

Our research has both a scientific purpose and a public service motive.  As economists interested in industrial organization and pricing policy and  in the economics of information technology,  we find that the academic journal industry presents a fascinating case study of such practices as  price discrimination,
bundled sales, and long-term contracting in an imperfectly competitive industry.

Contracts Collected as of August 13, 2009

Elsevier's Failed Effort to  Prevent Release