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The purpose of this article is to introduce a theoretical framework and approach for studying the evaluation and decision-making practices through which academic librarians attempt to reduce the cost of electronic journal subscriptions – an organizational practice known as the unbundling of big deal journal packages.

The article presents a literature-based conceptual analysis of several fields to delineate the elements of the practice of unbundling of big deal journal packages. Beyond analysing the prior literature, the discussion is supported by empirical findings from a pilot study on the topic conducted by two of the article's authors.

The main finding of the article is that the unbundling of big deal packages is a case of what sociologist refers to as decision-making in a social context. By reviewing previous studies, the article identifies the social and material elements constitutive of this practice. This, in turn, allows to develop questions and concepts for future research on the topic and to position it as an area of inquiry within the field of information behaviour/practices.

The article is the first attempt to conceptualize the unbundling of big deal journal packages by highlighting its phenomenological status as a type of information practice. In addition, the article proposes a research approach for studying this type of information practice by drawing on insights from the information behaviour/practice literature and enriching them through practice theory contributions in organizational studies and sociology.

This paper sets out to give an overview of the history of electronic journal package deals in Flanders and the role of consortia. The influence of package deals on libraries' budget, collection management and their role in the advancing monopolization of the information market are highlighted. The article also seeks to clariy why package deals were so attractive in the beginning but turned into a poisoned chalice for many. As an illustration of why it is so hard to get out of a deal, an average package deal license agreement is described.

The paper uses personal experience and views supported with background literature.

The article advocates better co‐operation between libraries and directed communication with the scholarly community which hold the key to making alternatives work.

A resource for those not (completely) familiar with package deals and their wide influence. The available alternatives and the remaining obstacles are described.

This paper is aimed primarily at academic library managers and acquisition librarians. By analogy to Pareto studying the relationship between clients and turnover, the paper will study subscriptions to e‐journals and usage statistics. The aim is to evaluate the long tail of usage statistics and to compare it with subscription lists of individually selected titles and packages (big deals).

The paper exploits usage statistics and subscription data from a national usage study of an academic publisher. Data are from 2010.

Usage statistics are partly shaped by the long tail effect. Individual subscriptions of journals are more selective than big deals, and trend towards a traditional retail curve. Unlike subscriptions through packages, usage and individual subscriptions can be related by a similar inclination. But both types of subscriptions fail to predict the popularity of a title in its usage.

The paper uses data from a national usage study and tries to identify global trends. Thus, it does not distinguish between customer categories, disciplines or activity domains.

The paper considers the opportunity provided by big deal for acquisition policy. Ready‐made big deals sometimes appear as an unbounded and excessive supply, not suited to true and sufficient users' needs, but on the other hand, selective acquisition policy cannot completely anticipate online usage behaviour.

Only a few studies distinguish Pareto from long tail distributions in usage statistics, and there is little empirical evidence on the impact of selected subscriptions versus big deals on these statistics.

This case study seeks to reflect upon the short history and rapid development of electronic journals (e‐journals) at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). It describes the scope of the journal migration project and its impact on library operations. UAEU (with over 16,000 students) is the flagship university in the UAE, and much farther along in the transition to electronic‐only access to journal literature than most libraries in the Arab world.

The article begins with background information on UAE and its academic institutions, then discusses the development of e‐journals at UAEU starting with the rationale and decision to cancel print journals and move to an all‐e‐journal collection.

The author shows that e‐journals have added enormous resources to the collection, improved service, enhanced access to journal literature, increased its usage, and decreased the demand for document delivery of single articles. The author also indicates the challenges of offering e‐journals as “bundled” packages and UAEU's concern about the library's inability to remove irrelevant titles, control cost, and retain the freedom to make changes on its journal collection.

Since there has been little or no discussion in the library literature on the impact that the increasing use of e‐journals has on academic institutions in developing countries, this case study of the UAEU experience should be useful to others in the Gulf region and in other parts of developing countries, as well as the library community in general.

Nigerian scientific journals are irregular and unreliable. Identifies lack of patronage, publicity and information about these journals as contributing factors. A subscription service was packaged and operated between 1987 and 1990 to investigate the full ramifications of the problems of Nigerian journals. Discusses experiences while operating the subscription service and suggests the way forward.

While the primary importance of citation searching continues to be connecting researchers to highly-related literature, additional uses for the data have developed. For example, academic institutions frequently recommend that faculty include a citation analysis in their tenure and promotion (t & p) dossiers as a way of demonstrating the value of their research. Due to the limited number of tools available for this type of analysis in the past, Librarians were unable to help faculty create an exhaustive accounting of citations to their work. The aim of this paper is to provide examples of the growing number of tools that now exist to assist librarians and faculty in locating citation information for t & p dossiers.

An in-depth survey of both free and subscription resources to identify those that offered options for citation searching was conducted.

Commercial vendors, organizations and researchers are developing a wide variety of tools that help track the impact of a faculty member's research.

The list of resources surveyed is not comprehensive. The research was focused on those available, and most relevant to the author's institution.

Based on the results of this investigation, a web page was created to help direct faculty and librarians to a large number of resources for citation searching (available at: http://libresources.wichita.edu/citationsearching).

Librarians have prepared numerous web guides to assist faculty in conducting citation searches. Few offer links to as wide a variety of resources as this research presents.

An interview with Pamela Skinner, Head of Collection Development, Smith College, USA.

Interview.

An interesting interview providing information about collection development in a private college that is part of a consortium.

This interview shows how Smith College Libraries is dealing with a changing collection development environment.

The purpose of this study is to respond to the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing special issue call for discussions that can assist advertising and marketing history researchers locate primary sources of interest to their research by describing the resources available through the online family history websites Ancestry.com and FindMyPast.com.

Brief histories of Ancestry and FindMyPast are presented, based on publicly available records and secondary sources. This paper explains the types of data researchers can access via Ancestry.com and FindMypast.com, the costs of access and then provides some examples of how these resources have been used in past research by marketing and advertising historians.

Family history websites such as Ancestry and FindMyPast can provide researchers with access to a wide variety of data sources, such as census and voting records; immigration records; city directories; birth, marriage and death records; military records; and almanacs and gazetteers, but at a cost. In some cases, paying for digital access to records is more convenient, timely and can cost less than travelling to access these same documents in physical form. Depending on the researcher’s geographical location and the country from which records are sought, this can add up to quite a cost savings. When using these sources, it is wise to determine which database contains more of the records you are searching for; Ancestry tends to have better US and Canadian resources, while FindMyPast covers the UK better.

Researchers interested in conducting advertising and marketing history research need access to primary data sources. Given restricted travel budgets and, indeed, restricted travel under COVID-19 conditions, gaining access to primary sources in digital form can allow researchers to continue their work. At any time, gaining access to digital records without having to travel can speed up the research process. Researchers new to the field, and those with many years of experience, can benefit from learning more about family history databases as primary data sources.

A major requirement and practice in human resource management of an organisation is the award of appropriate reward packages to employees. This paper aims to examine the importance attached to reward packages by personnel of quantity surveying firms (QSFs) and the level of adoption of the packages with a view to develop important ones that can enhance quality of performance and reliability of the employees.

Questionnaires were administered on registered quantity surveyors employed in QSFs in the study area, which was Lagos State, Nigeria. Mean item score and chi-square were used to examine the significance of importance attached to available reward packages by employees, whereas factor analysis was used to highlight and group identified available reward packages.

Basic pay, that is salary and wages, is the most important and mostly used reward package, whereas the least are service recognition and profit sharing. Most of the reward packages were found to be important to the development of QSFs, and the variables were extracted and grouped into eight components.

As much as basic pay is a global and traditional reward system, managers and directors of QSFs should ensure that personnel with long-term commitment to the mission and vision of the company are duly recognised and rewarded accordingly. More so, profit from the proceed and benefits of the company should be shared in an appropriate manner, especially if employees are involved in securing jobs from clients.