In my experience, I am not sure the expensive packages would have helped me a lot with papers. Most of my class paper sources consisted of a broad spectrum of more modern commentaries (which I used from my collection and moreso from a local university) and journal articles which I attained from free access to the ATLA database.
I am in the process of building my Logos library now and have found a few ways to save money:
- Get all the features via the monthly Faithlife Connect service. Learn Logos via Tutorials and get a good grip on what features I really would use to see if continuing to pay monthly makes sense.
- Once you have the monthly Faithlife Connect, the dynamic pricing reduces prices on the base packages. To pick up Bible versions I wanted access to, I purchased the Logos 8 starter library and Baptist starter library. Both were around $20 dynamically priced for me. I also bought the Reformed Bronze Library upgrade for around $85 mainly for access to Calvin's Commentaries and the works of John Owen.
- Additionally, I have been finding works for free online, mostly in PDF, and then converting them to docx via free online converters and then adding them to Logos. They typically have errors, broken up sentences here and there, and don't translate Greek and Hebrew well but most are just fine. If I feel they are not suitable in the future for my needs, I may upgrade to a Logos version.
- My Logos buying plan is to wait and see what I need. You can go crazy with buying packages and then get a lot of stuff you don't end up using. They pad those packages with a lot of fluff you may never use to get the price higher.