Editor’s Note: Today’s post is by Isaac Wink. Isaac is a Research Data Librarian at the University of Kentucky. The views contained in this post represent his personal views, not the views of his employer.

Clarivate, the provider behind a number of resources key to academic libraries, including ProQuest, recently announced that it is shifting to a “subscription-based access strategy,” meaning that it will no longer allow academic libraries to purchase perpetual licenses to content. This is bad news for libraries. Leo Lo, the president of the Association of College and Research Libraries, told Publishers Weekly that “Clarivate’s move away from any ownership option forces libraries into a cycle of ongoing payments, intensifying concerns about collection stability and the ability to preserve scholarly materials for future use.”

Coincidentally, this news from Clarivate came just a week before Amazon ended users’ ability to download their Kindle purchases to a computer. While it feels to many consumers like buying an e-book means they have purchased a file that they can use as they please, in reality they have bought the right to access the book through approved methods. Amazon’s removal of the ability to download books is signaling that it is cracking down on the former interpretation of digital ownership. It is noteworthy that within the span of a few days, two companies with different customer bases have made moves that similarly restrict how those customers will be able to purchase and access the content they sell.

Subscription models have become increasingly common for consumer software—just think of the transition from purchasing music in physical formats to downloading MP3 files from iTunes to the current hegemony of subscription-based platforms like Apple Music and Spotify. These transitions do not always go smoothly. In 2021, the notetaking app Notability, following the lead of competitors like Evernote and Goodnotes, announced that it would be switching to a yearly subscription plan for full access to the app’s features, and that even those who had purchased it previously for a one-time cost would have to pay. The decision sparked significant backlash from users who would now have a less capable app despite having made a purchase up front. The company quickly reversed course and announced that those who had already purchased the app would continue to have full access—but future users would only have the option to purchase the subscription plan.

Even in music, where the switch to subscriptions felt less turbulent to many users, the new paradigm has transformed the music industry, with artists making significantly less for streams of their songs than they would on royalties for physical or digital sales of their music. Beyond direct impacts to consumers, subscription models inevitably transform the ecosystem in which they operate, as chronicled by Liz Pelly in her new book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. Clarivate’s recent announcement is no different in the realm of scholarly publishing. As Andrew Pace of the Association of Research Libraries told Publishers Weekly, “Libraries will need to decide whether this new business model is consistent with being good stewards of the resources with which they have been entrusted.”

The trouble with subscription models for purchasers is that they work fine until suddenly they don’t. Netflix, HBO, and other movie and TV streaming services are notoriously mercurial when it comes to adding or removing content beloved by fans, even when no licensing rights have changed hands. In the academic context, instructors are left in the lurch when a treasured source for teaching is unexpectedly dropped from a collection to which the library subscribes.

The solution to both these problems is the same: Individuals and institutions should have the option to buy physical copies or perpetual access to digital editions for content they can’t afford to lose. Direct purchases not only provide security of continued access but also generally provide better financial support to creators. But corporate pivots to subscription-only models take that option away. In the short term, consumers are dependent on the whims of platforms to maintain access to the resources they need. In the long term, subscription models may change an industry in such a way that new iterations of those resources can never even see the light of day.

While Clarivate’s decision in many ways mirrors transitions to subscriptions for consumer content, libraries will also need to reckon with how increased reliance on subscriptions would change the nature of their collections. To what extent do librarians have the ability to drive acquisitions in strategic directions when their collections are no longer composed primarily of resources to which they can guarantee perpetual access, but instead merely a bundle of subscriptions? Subscription access is not new and will always be a part of how many libraries deliver resources to patrons in the digital age, but if more vendors choose to make it their only business model, libraries may be left in an uncomfortable position.

Another reason the Clarivate announcement is different is that the company will be up against significantly more organized resistance from libraries. Thus far, the announcement has not gone over well with library organizations or with individual librarians. EBSCO, seeing an opportunity, put out its own statement on its “Commitment to Supporting Libraries’ Book Acquisition Needs Amidst Industry Shifts,” specifically naming perpetual access to e-books as a continued offering. The question now is whether such pressure will be sufficient to cause Clarivate to reevaluate. If it does not, libraries will need to make difficult choices about how to respond and if they will reward Clarivate for limiting their purchasing options.