The purpose of this paper is to present a comparison of three models for journal literature access.
This empirical paper is based on working practice in an academic library.
Post‐implementation analysis shows that both pay‐per‐view and big deals offered valuable and highly used additional content, and that both are cost‐effective alternatives to the traditional subscription model. But overall, the big deal proves to be the best model for most journal titles due to its combination of superior cost savings and ease of end‐user access.
By analyzing the results of switching a large number of titles across three access modes in a short period of time, this paper offers insight into the effect of the three access models on end users and library budgets.
