RLI 282 The State of Large-Publisher Bundles in 2012 15 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC 2013 Table 2. Research Library Definition of Journal Bundles Publisher % Licensed All Titles in 2012 % Licensed All Titles in 2006* Elsevier 23% 32% Springer 36% 50% Taylor & Francis 26% 87% Wiley 19% 37% * Data based on combination of responses to ARL 2005 survey of “have licensed [for 2006]” and “planning to license [for 2006].” Regardless of recent changes, the role of consortia continues to be pivotal for the largest publisher bundles. As the overall percentages of libraries licensing with the biggest publishers have gone up, the proportion of licenses that are managed through consortia remains remarkably similar for 2006 and 2012 subscriptions, with one exception (see Table 3). Over the last six years Taylor & Francis has been making up for a later migration to electronic publishing and consortial licensing is clearly part of the reason. Table 3. % of Contracts Licensed via Consortium Publisher 2012 2006 2003 American Chemical Society 71% N/A 46% Elsevier 61% 63% 39% Nature 84% N/A N/A Sage 91% N/A N/A Springer 97% 95% 37% Taylor & Francis 68% 20% 3% Wiley 96% 94% 53% Over the last decade, ARL’s member surveys have documented a remarkable shift in the move of research libraries away from collecting current journals in print form. Already in 2003, Case was observing a rapid shift from bundled print and electronic subscriptions to electronic-only subscriptions.6 By 2006, print equivalents had been cancelled for 153 out of 266 contracts (58%) for the five publishers covered by that survey. In 2012, with the exception of a single publisher (Taylor & Francis), no libraries reported that they retained corresponding print subscriptions for their complete journal bundles (7 out of 352 contracts still included print, or 2%). However, 23% to 43% of respondents (by publisher) indicated that they still carried some selected print titles in 2012. This suggests that there are some instances where publishers have not yet fully implemented digital publishing or developed fully substitutable digital versions for some journals or, perhaps some users are not yet ready to support cancellation for individual titles.
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