Transparency in Library Subscription Pricing

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The University of North Texas Libraries subscribe to thousands of different journals, e-books, and databases, often in packages and generally with annual payments.

In the interest of transparency and to help inform future decisions about subscriptions, the Collection Development Department in the Libraries has amassed pricing information for the past three years and posted it online with a ‘data dictionary’ describing the various fields. When publishers prohibit disclosure of their pricing, we have redacted the costs, and included a statement as to why.

With this information, we anticipate subject librarians and teaching faculty at UNT will be able to see the true cost of journals and other resources in their field of research, colleagues at other institutions will be able to compare with their expenditures on these resources, and researchers at UNT and elsewhere will use the data in ways we haven’t imagined yet.

Visit this link for all available versions of the Transparency List.

For more information on this Transparency List, please contact Sian Brannon, Associate Dean for Collection Management.