Stockholm University Library (SUB) has been tracking the University’s open access (OA) publishing costs within the local accounting system since 2016. The objective is to gain an overview of the costs and to use this as a basis for decisions about how to proceed in order to support the transition to OA at Stockholm University. This article explains the reasons behind using the accounting system as the primary source of information and describes the workflow of tracking costs and how additional data are retrieved. Basic findings from the 2017 cost compilation are outlined, and the steps taken in 2018, with consequences for both the current workflow and the costs at SUB, are briefly discussed. A breakout session on this topic was presented at the UKSG Annual Conference in Glasgow in 2018.

In October 2015 Stockholm University Library (SUB) decided to no longer use the services of a subscription agent for managing individual journal subscriptions. Instead, SUB has taken a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach to subscriptions management and now renews and orders new journals directly from each publisher. In the light of two years of experience, this article discusses the key findings of this new way of working with subscriptions, the differences between the first and second year of renewing directly with publishers and the pros and cons of not using an agent. The article ends with a few recommendations and things for other libraries to consider before making the decision to do without a subscription agent and explains why SUB has decided to continue with the DIY approach.