RE: Who is the subscriber

["Carlson, David" <DCarlson@bridgew.edu>]

I find myself in the odd position of siding (at least a bit...) with
Academic Press regarding IDEAL pricing and disagreeing with Ms. Jacoby of
the Univ. of Maryland in her comments. First, a disclaimer -- my library
was an early subscriber to AP IDEAL (and our subscription continues).

Ms. Jacoby maintains that it is grossly unfair to base pricing on
subscriptions sent to departmental libraries. It seems to me this is a
"short-sighted criticism." It is important to understand the Academic
Press pricing model. In summary, AP bases its price on the basis of a
three-year pattern of print subscriptions to their journals. That price
then sets the price for the IDEAL platform. Given that IDEAL then provides
campus-wide access to those journals, I find the publisher's logic fairly
unassailable for including departmental print subscriptions. While we can
argue about the readiness or willingness of a department (or library) to
replace the print with the online, the campus-wide appearance of the
online full text is clearly an opportunity to do so for those departments.

I agree, certainly, that the library finds itself in a bad place. It is
having to bear an increased cost of the online for the decisions of other
departments over which it had no control whatsoever (indeed, it may even
"resent" those subscriptions); but I can understand the publisher's
logic... What is an alternative? A limitation to library building only
access might be an appropriate solution but it's surely not a solution the
library finds attractive either, I would think.

It seems to me that this particular issue is really just one example (that
I had not thought of previously) of the negative aspects of a print-based
pricing model for the online version. Clearly, such a model has certain
benefits and logic. For my moderately-sized library which did not have a
significant investment in the AP print titles, the model was very
attractive. However, I find it really strange to base a cost for the
online at a particular point in time based on historical trends. The price
is then set and while it may have a certain logic at that point in time,
it is not at all clear to me how one then addressees changes in the
pricing that come about either in the institution's character (size,
programs, etc.) or the offerings/value of the publisher?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Beth Jacoby [mailto:bjacoby@hshsl.umaryland.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2000 7:21 PM
> To: DCARLSON@mailhost.bridgew.edu
> Subject: Re: Who is the subscriber
> 
> My library has not been able to afford to subscribe to either
> ScienceDirect or Academic IDEAL.  We would like to get both, 
> but I think
> it unfair to base pricing on subscriptions sent to 
> departmental libraries
> on campus.  When I looked into pricing for IDEAL and found 
> out that this
> was being done, I expressed my disbelief to the sales rep.  
> Unlike library
> subscriptions which are available to everyone on campus, departmental
> subscriptions are available to only a handful of faculty.  The library
> (and its budget) is being penalized for the existence of non-library
> subscriptions on campus.
> 
> Publishers need to know that this is not an acceptable pricing 
> method.
> 
> Beth Jacoby
> Head of Acquisitions/Serials
> Health Sciences and Human Services Library
> University of Maryland
> 601 W. Lombard St.
> Baltimore, MD  21201-1512
> Phone: 410-706-8856    
> Fax: 410-706-8860