Abstract
The paper aims to explore and identify the recent contributions to the literature available in the current developments and issues in licensing and pricing models in e-resources. An extensive literature survey was performed in an attempt to identify substantial works published to date concerning pricing and licensing issues coupled with the publishers and librarians. The literature review connotes that hardly any systematic study or scholarly output which can facilitate the precise and accurate facts about pricing and licensing issues coupled with the publishers and librarians is available, although the size of the scholarly publishing industry and its effect on the cost and licensing of e-resource is quite large. It is evident from the scrutiny of literature existing that there are still areas for advanced exploration on the topic of pricing and licensing concerns of the scholarly publishing industry; and study paves the way for the concerned organizations and institutions (such as Libraries and Publishers), at global level, to take substantial measures to overcome monopoly effects from the publishers and come up with the standard models. The study is very helpful for librarians or authorities in selecting the best available e-journal package for their libraries .The paper is the first ordered and thorough attempt to review the literature and provide that there is not any standard pricing model available for e-resource subscription in the market to control the monopoly of publishers and aggregators.
Key words: Pricing, e-resources, pay per article, big deal, print, publishers, vendors.
