Siobhan Haimé, Birkbeck, University of London (with thanks to Tristan Smith for copyediting assistance) (See also the news item here) In a rather seismic announcement, Clarivate has announced the phase-out of perpetual access purchases for print, eBooks and digital collections by the end of 2025. Described as a supposedly transformative “subscription-based strategy”, this approach is explained as “following changes in demand from libraries” and posed to support libraries in their mission. This is to be achieved by removing the option for libraries to own content (as far as one can own licensed digital materials) and moving to a subscription model with an AI research assistant Key changes:

For those still blissfully unaware, the fundamental changes have been briefly outlined below, as well as a timeline provided by Clarivate:

• The cessation of one-time perpetual purchases for eBooks through Ebook Central by 31-10-2025. Titles already purchased will remain accessible under their existing terms.
• The cessation of print book sales through both OASIS and Rialto by 31-08-2025.
  • Open orders for out-of-stock or back-ordered titles will be cancelled on 31-07-2025.
• The sunsetting of the OASIS marketplace by 31-12-2025.
• Demand-driven acquisition (DDA) will no longer be supported. Existing programs will run until 31-10-2025, but no new set-ups will be approved.
• Rialto will only provide publisher-direct and aggregator platform eBooks going forward. It is set to “expand to offer enhanced collection development capabilities and workflows”. What exactly this means is unclear as of yet.

For those less familiar with acquisitions, it is worth noting here that ProQuest (Coutts/Ringwold) are a main supplier of shelf-ready print books for many UK libraries and that for those who have not hedged their bets with EBSCO-GOBI, eBook Central licenses will — in most instances — be the cheapest licences available (though arguably not always the best value for money)…”