Anybody else get the survey from NPG that seems to be very obviously pushing for a Big Deal version of the Nature journals? I’ll spare you all my usual rant. Just wanted to throw out there to whomever may be listening that library budgets can’t support more Big Deals. Academic institutions are competing for the best new students and currently they do it with visible assets like a new gym and renovated dorms, not by shoring up the library’s budget to pay for invisible assets whose prices increase at ridiculous rates every year.

 

We were very appreciative of the Nature.com Complete deal that we got for 2015, and would like to continue with it. But if NPG yanks the plug in favor of a Big Deal, they’ll be out a modest sum of money instead of making bank. I  imagine a lot of libraries will make the same decision, and ultimately NPG will lose money.

 

We all know what Big Deals are, and how they impose a millstone on the library’s collective neck when it comes to budget. The collection of millstones on our neck has us drowning in red ink, and when the administration finally tires of our deficits, we may have to cut a few loose. We would be highly reluctant to add yet another one to the pile and drown even deeper.

 

Diane Westerfield, Electronic Resources & Serials Librarian

Tutt Library, Colorado College

diane.westerfield@coloradocollege.edu

(719) 389-6661

(719) 389-6082 (fax)