The University Libraries is altering its approach to large-scale agreements with major academic publishers, starting with Springer journals.
The shift marks a significant departure from the “big deal” model that has dominated academic publishing in recent years, where libraries sign comprehensive, multi-million-dollar contracts with publishers to access a wide range of journals and resources.
As of January 2025, the University Libraries is no longer subscribe to Springer journals as part of a mass, bundled package. This change will begin to impact the campus community in February, with alternative methods for accessing Springer content. Despite these shifts, the University Libraries is committed to maintain accessibility to essential research and scholarly resources. Adjustments will be made based on usage and feedback from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s academic community.
The decision stems from the University Libraries’ strategic framework, “A Nebraska Model for Public Research Libraries.” The plan prioritizes flexibility, cost-effectiveness and the exploration of new information resources.
“In an ideal scenario, we would have engaged the university community intentionally and broadly before arriving at such a decision, but recent contract negotiations demonstrated that we could no longer abide by the status quo, and we had limited time to act,” said Liz Lorang, dean of University Libraries, in a written message. “This change creates an opportunity for the Libraries to redirect our finite spending to other areas of need and impact.”
As part of this change, the University Libraries plan to:
- Maintain perpetual access to a decade-plus of Springer content that has already been purchased, including journals, e-books and protocols;
- Continue subscriptions to selected Nature titles and Springer Protocols;
- Add Article Galaxy Scholar (https://go.unl.edu/a5m8), a rapid delivery service to request articles published in 2025 and onward from Springer publications;
- Purchase Springer e-books up to three times per year, including purchase requests (https://go.unl.edu/tvxs); and
- Monitor data to help make future decisions on subscriptions, stay up to date (https://go.unl.edu/6a5u) on collection decisions, and provide feedback.
Learn more about the University Libraries’ decision related to Springer journals.
