{"word_count": 168, "character_count": 1805}
Theodore C. Bergstrom, Paul N. Courant, R. Preston McAfee, and Michael A. WilliamsEvaluating big deal journal bundlesPNAS 2014 ; published ahead of print June 16, 2014, doi:10.1073/pnas.1403006111Free version:http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/PNAS-2014-Bergstrom-1403006111.pdfData supplementhttp://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2014/06/11/1403006111.DCSupplemental/pnas.1403006111.sapp.pdfExcerpt:"So what secrets of the big deal have Freedom of Informationrequests allowed us to uncover?We find that even with the institution-specific discounts resultingfrom bundled purchases, the prices per citation charged tolarge PhD-granting universities by major commercial publishersare much higher than those charged by major nonprofit publishers.Among the commercial publishers in our study, Elsevier’sprices per citation are nearly 3 times those charged by the nonprofits, whereas Emerald, Sage, and Taylor &#38; Francis have prices per citation that are roughly 10 times those of the nonprofits.[...]The contracts that we have seen show remarkable institutionspecific price variations that cannot be explained by university characteristics such as enrollment and PhD production. Some institutions have been quite successful in bargaining for lowerprices, whereas others may not have been aware that betterbargains can be reached. Perhaps this variation explains publishers’desire to keep contract terms confidential."See alsohttp://www.infodocket.com/2014/06/18/new-research-article-evaluating-big-deal-journal-bundleshttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/16/universities-get-poor-value-academic-journal-publishing-firms?CMP=twt_guhttp://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2014/06/18/is-your-big-deal-a-good-dealhttp://www.attemptingelegance.com/?p=2517http://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/?p=12693