This study presents data from 27 academic and research libraries about how they obtain journal articles when they lack a subscription to the needed publication, and purchase articles through inter-library loan, direct from publisher websites, through ala carte services or rights clearing agencies. The study also looks at how these libraries satisfy some of their demand through free or open access services such as Research Gate, Google Scholar, digital repositories and other services.
The report gives detailed data on spending on ala carte journal articles for 2019-20 and projected for 2020-21 and gives similar data for spending on Copyright Clearance Center, downloads direct from publisher websites, as well as spending trends for on interlibrary loan services. Survey participants also provide data on their use of a range of free and open access services and give advice to their peers on general strategies for ala carte purchasing.
Data in the report is broken out for academic and other research libraries, by size and enrollment level of educational institution, and by other useful variables.
Just of few of this 52-page report’s many findings are that:
Nearly 56% of organizations surveyed plan to increase their ala carte spending on scholarly journal articles ala carte in the absence of subscriptions
Traditional alternatives to subscriptions such as Google Scholar, digital repositories and inter-library loan satisfy about 75% of demand for scholarly journal articles in the absence of subscriptions but a lower percentage for the most research oriented institutions.
Annual mean spending on articles downloaded from publisher websites was more than $6,000