Re: American Geophysical Union Electronic options!

["MARGARET LANDESMAN" <mlandesm@library.utah.edu>]

Re: Chuck's comments on the AGU from before Christmas, the University of
Utah has subscribed.  Barbara Cox, our Earth Sciences Bibilographer,
posted the following to Geonet-L on November 27:

"Since libraries have to pay for subscriptions in real dollars, an
increase of thousands of dollars in one year for a title is not trivial.
It can be particularly irksome when the announcement is so late in the
year. However, even at a more than doubled price the Journal of
Geophysical Research might be a good value. Its ISI impact factor for 2000
was 6 of 117 in "Geosciences, Interdisplinary".  Its 1999 cost per page
according to
http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/atmosphericsci/scholcom/co
stperpage.html was $0.14, one of the lowest in that list of major
meteorology journals.  That cost per page doubled would still be well
below many titles on the list. (Admittedly, a comparison with purely
geological titles would not be quite so dramatic.) On a per use cost, I
suspect the online version would be very competitive with many of our
earth science journals."

---------------------------------------------------------------
Margaret Landesman
University of Utah

**

From:           	"Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>
To:             	"Liblicense-L (E-mail)" <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Subject:        	American Geophysical Union Electronic options!
Date sent:      	Sat, 22 Dec 2001 00:40:31 EST
Send reply to:  	liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

Just got the mailer on AGU's new "deal"

-the logic driving this pricing seems to be pure fear, and AGU should have
long ago gotten over its fear of academic institutions. This pricing is
not only agressive its offensive .  .

JGR Solid Earth: price instutions print or fiche $3,000

Electronic only: less than 50 phd's per year(institution class 4) $4,345.

Electronic only: more than 50 phd's per year (class 5 institution) $6,517

plus print raises it to $6879 from $3,000!! add print to electronic only,
add $362

JGR all, print $6,400

JGR all Electronic only less than 50 phd's $8,962

JGR all Electronic only more than 50 phd's per year $13,444

AND if you want the all print on top of the electronic add $1,622 to those
prices.

I believe the library community should send AGU a message that they are
retarding access to their literature with such pricing practices.Most
other professional /association journals are actively creating a welcoming
electronic option. This approach will only mean AGU's titles will be less
available to those who need them.

Their rationale in the circular letter they sent out is steeped in logic I
consider embarassing coming from a professional organization.

I fear  they could self destruct with this approach.

Chuck Hamaker