Two weeks after announcing a plan to eliminate print and perpetual access digital purchases in favor of a “big deal” style digital subscription model for ProQuest ebooks, Clarivate officials this week apologized to librarians for taking them by surprise and delayed the rollout of the plan.
“Listening to our customers, we have realized that the original communicated dates for the last orders would pose a considerable challenge, so we are extending your ability to make perpetual purchases of print books and ebooks on all platforms through June 30, 2026,” reads a March 4 letter to customers from Clarivate CEO Matti Shem Tov. “We recognize that the absence of community consultation created frustration during already challenging times for libraries and higher education. We sincerely apologize for this and are committed to learning from this moment and doing better.”
The letter comes after Clarivate officials on February 18 announced a “transformative” new subscription access model for ProQuest ebooks.
Clarivate officials stressed the shift was designed to help libraries “keep pace with student demand, while also ensuring that their collections remain well-rounded with a variety of publishers and disciplines represented,” while also optimizing new technology, including AI.
Librarians, however, quickly raised concerns. In a February 21 post on the U.K.-based LSE Impact blog, Kevin O’Donovan, acquisitions manager for LSE Library, recalled previous controversies over the “big deal” style bundling of academic journals by players such as Elsevier, and questioned whether Clarivate's move augured a similar “era of big deals” for scholarly ebooks.
“[Bundling] results in a long tail of low or zero-use titles, and a high cost per user of the titles that are required,” O’Donovan observed, adding that when a library decides to cancel a subscription, they are often left with nothing to show for their money. "As Siobhan Haimé discusses in an insightful analysis, this development also changes the relationship between publisher and library," O'Donovan noted, "with implications for curating collections, bibliodiversity, and ultimately teaching and learning.”
Perhaps more to the point, O’ Donovan suggested in his post that U.K. higher education institutions, which are “already under financial strain, with many reconsidering their commitments to existing costly ‘Big Deal’ subscription packages,” are wary understandably of the change. “How this decision from Clarivate adding another large subscription package to Library budgets will be viewed by the global customer base remains to be seen,” O'Donovan wrote, “but given the previous turmoil over Ebook pricing in the marketplace, it is unlikely to be welcomed with open arms.”
Meanwhile, in his March 4 letter to customers, Shem Tov, citing “feedback and guidance” from customers, sought to further “clarify” the company’s plan, including a commitment to honor previously purchased perpetual access content, and to increase investment in the company’s ebook marketplace, Rialto, through which individual publishers can choose to sell perpetual access to their titles.
Specifically, the letter states:
- We will extend the ability for customers to make perpetual purchases for both print and ebooks on all platforms, including Ebook Central, OASIS, Rialto and GOBI through June 30, 2026.
- We reaffirm our commitment to always facilitate title-by-title perpetual access purchasing through the Rialto marketplace of ebooks from publishers and aggregators.
- We will work with you and your vendors of choice to create migration toolkits, to make transitioning your workflows and profiles as efficient and seamless as possible.
- We will provide the data and analytics you need, as well as regular updates and close communication with your local team.
The London-based Clarivate has quickly become one the world’s largest players in the academic market, fueled in part by its 2021 purchase of ProQuest for $5.3 billion—a deal that was opposed by the library community in the U.S., which raised concerns about competition and the company’s growing market power.
