19 February 2025
(To read this announcement in context, Siobhan Haimé has written a very useful opinion piece/primer in today’s newsletter – you can read it here)
In a surprising move, and to many librarians consternation, Clarivate announced that its business model for eBooks was changing. As part of “a new strategy and changes in demand from libraries” they will phase out one-time perpetual purchases of print books and ebooks on Ebook Central in favour of a subscription model. The new strategy was described as “transformative”. “The OASIS marketplace will close at the end of 2025. The Rialto marketplace will remain with publisher-direct ebook platforms and will expand to offer enhanced collection development capabilities and workflows. All of these changes will take place throughout 2025.”
LinkedIn has hosted some lively discussions from customers in response to the business decision (here, here and here for example), BlueSky (here) and on lis-e-resources (here).
Ebsco quickly sent out a release to say that their business model is not changing, and that “reaffirms its unwavering commitment to supporting libraries with diverse acquisition needs, including perpetual access to e-books, print book fulfillment, and flexible acquisition models”
More to follow in future issues of UKSG eNews.