The State of Large-Publisher Bundles in 2012

F or well over a decade, research libraries have been spending millions of dollars per year licensing collections of journals published by just a handful of publishers. Ten years ago ARL surveyed its membership about their licensed collections of journal titles. In 2002, ARL asked for information regarding members’ expenditures for 60 journal publishers, ultimately reporting findings for the 7 most commonly subscribed publishers. In 2003, a second survey added further information about some licensing terms.2 ARL surveyed its members again in 2005 about their 2006 licenses with the 6 largest publishers at that time.3 Early in the summer of 2012, ARL again surveyed its member libraries about their subscriptions to journal collections from large publishers.4 The data collected in this most recent survey show that a great deal has changed in the last decade, and yet several issues remain concerns within the library community. Pricing models and license terms, consortial arrangements, and the conversion from print to electronic subscriptions remain issues across the surveys.