Unmediated Reprints Desk Access to Unsubscribed Journal Articles: Access and Cost Savings

Background: Standalone journals comprise 66% of the collections budget at the [retracted] Health Sciences Library (HSL). For years journal collections had been subjected to a cost-per-use (CPU) threshold of $50 per use triggering a potential cut. In the face of further collection budget restrictions, in 2019 that threshold was lowered to $35. Simultaneously, with emerging options, the HSL started piloting unmediated on-demand access using Reprints Desk. The objectives of the current project were to maintain access to cut titles, move to a real-time pay-per-use model for high-CPU titles, save money, and maintain satisfaction.

Description: In July 2019, HSL cut $150,000 worth of journal titles which exceeded the $35 CPU threshold. In August 2019 Reprints Desk approached the HSL about using their product for user-driven unmediated access. HSL had already been using Reprints Desk for mediated interlibrary loan services but had not yet embarked on unmediated access. Instead, the HSL began this implementation for those cut titles by incorporating Reprints Desk into EBSCO Discovery Service. In July 2020 the HSL started offering unmediated access with Reprints Desk for select titles and announced it with a blog post. Patrons also had the option to order via ILL for non-rush articles as recommended. Evaluation is conducted by looking at total cost, CPU, and monitoring of unsolicited patron comments.

Conclusion: Average cost per article via Reprints Desk was $45 per article. Costs for ILL for these titles (28 requests) during 2020-21 was $0. Savings had been predicted to be about $70,000. In actuality, usage for the titles via Reprints Desk has been very low (29 requests) and actual savings for 2020-2021 was over $150,000. Only $1,020 was spent on unmediated Reprints Desk requests. Additionally, not a single complaint or even comment has been received to date. It is unclear why usage has been so much lower than previous, but one might infer that Reprints Desk/ILL represents a “speed bump” and library users are finding other articles to use rather than clicking through to these.