Librarian’s Schizophrenia : Big Deal vs. Open Access

Abstract

All or most librarians are behaving in a schizophrenic manner. They know perfectly well that the aims of commercial (and some non-commercial) publishers are not the same as theirs: On the one hand there is a need for maximising profits (even if it is for the benefit of a society’s members) and shareholder values, on the other hand there is a mission to warrant and facilitate access to information for the users. So librarians find themselves back in opposition to the publishers and sustaining the quest for alternative solutions, but at the same time they build up consortia and sign Big Deals for databases and electronic journals, reinforcing their dependency from the publishers in this inelastic market.