Despite some publishers still using agents in the traditional way, Gavin thinks a new model is needed soon: “The impact of OA in the UK will continue. When you look globally, the UK is ahead of the curve on open access publishing for research. But in the US now we have a President, Joe Biden, who is actively supportive of Open Access and whose administration has recently taken great leaps forward in ensuring that pub licly- funded research is freely available on publication. When this is happening in the world’s biggest market it’s not hard to see these trends accelerating. So, agent-friendly deals being done in the UK may not be there forever. “The deals that Jisc has negotiated, like the Taylor & Francis one, that are friendly to agents will be renegotiated every few years. There’s no guarantee that agent-friendly publishers will remain so permanently so we need a framework for subscription agents that can flex around things that might change.”.
How?
“We want to accommodate the changing market around subscriptions agents for our members. A framework agreement does all the heavy lifting that every institution would otherwise have to do for themselves. But it also gives some flexibility for institutions to apply local requirements. So if you are a teaching institution you would have different
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considerations than if you were a research heavy institution.
We’ve got three things we’re trying to walk a line between:
1. That the agents can work sustainably from an economical point of view and even flourish and innovate;
2. We’re trying to limit the amount members have to pay to keep it sustainable, although the cost is likely to increase;
3. And design an agreement that is straightforward for members to use if they need it to be, while allowing those with complex requirements to drill down.
Message
“I’d like institutions to understand that the sector requirement for Open Access publishing has changed much about the financials of agent services – and to be prepared for the potential impact. The same degree of service cannot be provided with reduced revenue so we need to allow agents to be remunerated based on service rather than on the amount spent, as we currently do. Many institutions understand this but others just don’t, especially some of the smaller ones who don’t always have the capacity to stay on top of everything and engage with their suppliers or consortia. “It seems likely that many (perhaps all) institutions will see higher agent costs as a result and I would like them to be aware of that. It will still represent
good value compared to managing the work in-house but I appreciate that any extra costs are particularly unwelcome at the moment. We need to be realistic, though, and accept that these costs are directly linked to our Open Access requirements.”
The solution
“We’ll likely see agents becoming sub scriptions managers as well as subscriptions agents. I expect there will still be a requirement to manage subscriptions, regardless of whether the agent handles a financial transaction, particularly where usage data is concerned.
“They will be exposed to more of the small publishers, that long tail of the market, and print subscriptions are still very important for some subject areas. A switch to service-focussed pricing over spend-focussed pricing means agents can continue to deliver what they are doing today, where they are allowed to and provide incentive to develop new services where they can add value for libraries in future.
“I want to manage a framework that supports financial sustainability for the market but also gives suppliers reason to innovate and invest alongside our members. Quite how the next iteration of our framework agreement achieves this is not yet decided but will play out in the first half of 2023. BG
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