Life Without a Journal Deal

Evaluating big deal journal bundles.

Large commercial publishers sell bundled online subscriptions to their entire list of academic journals at prices significantly lower than the sum of their á la carte prices. Bundle prices differ drastically between institutions, but they are not publicly posted. The data that we have collected enable us to compare the bundle prices charged by commercial publishers with those of nonprofit socie...

A journal business model to replace the big deal?

In the mid-1990s the idea of offering library users a large package of journals at less cost than purchasing subscriptions separately seemed too good an opportunity to be missed, not only for librarians but also for publishers. The advent of the " Big Deal " promised a glorious future for users of journals, for publishers and for librarians. Why has the dream gone sour? As one who has shared an...

A life without worms

Worms have co-evolved with humans over millions of years. To survive, they manipulate host systems by modulating immune responses so that they cause (in the majority of hosts) relatively subtle harm. Anthelminthic treatment has been promoted as a measure for averting worm specific pathology and to mitigate subtle morbidities which may include effects on anaemia, growth, cognitive function and e...

Life without a cerebellum.

ischaemic attacks or carotid disease was all very well, but did not answer the more relevant question: do patients with severe carotid disease and limb shaking transient ischaemic attacks have more impaired cerebrovascular reactivity than similar patients with 'con-ventional' transient ischaemic attacks (i.e. loss of function such as paralysis contralateral to severe carotid disease)? In this i...

Big Deal - good deal? Or is there a better deal?