Re: Recent Pricing/Licensing Terms for Society Publications

[Michele Newberry <fclmin@nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu>]

The Florida Center for Library Automation hosts two journals published by
societies, "Florida Entomologist" by the Florida Entomological Society and
"Nematropica" by Organization of Nematologists of Tropical America.  Both
journals are free on the web at
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/entomologist  and
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/nematropica respectively.

I asked Dr. Tom Walker, UF professor and person largely responsible for
"Florida Entomologist" being online, whether having the journal available
freely on the Internet had had any appreciable affect on membership in the
society.  He said that he had been analyzing the data for both the Florida
Entomological Society and the Entomological Society of America since 1998
and

"During this three years FES lost 14% of its full members and ESA lost 18%
or its full members.  If you add in student memberships for both
societies, the figures become 17% and 19%.  The decline in entomology as a
discipline is what I attribute the ESA decline to.  FES should not be
immune to the effects of this decline.  Therefore, the data support the
contention that, thus far, Fla Ent Soc has suffered little (if at all)
from making its journal freely Web accessible."

Dr. Walker has some definite opinions about this subject which can be
found linked off his website at:
http://csssrvr.entnem.ufl.edu/~walker/index.htm

I think the two societies we are working with are convinced that they and
their journals can survive free access on the Web let alone reasonably
priced access and that wider access to their authors' refereed
publications is a great a service to their members.

  -- Michele

Michele Newberry
Assistant Director for Library Services
Florida Center for Library Automation
2002 NW 13th St. Ste. 320
Gainesville, FL  32609-3478

352-392-9020
353-392-9185 (fax)
email: fclmin@nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu

Tom Williams wrote:

> Well Paul, your rationale touts pretty much the company line for companies
> (and societies) first getting into the digital age.  However, at our
> library we wouldn't even give such an offer a second glance.  Unless I
> miss my guess, you'll find the majority of major and not-so-major academic
> libraries passing on your offer.  At your upcoming meeting on E
> publishing, I would strongly suggest you give a lot of time to figuring
> out what will work for the society AND for libraries.  Most publishers are
> finding that in order to be competitive in the digital environment they
> have to design a pricing algorithym which protects the company from losing
> money but also is reasonable for libraries and allows access from anywhere
> (by authorized users).
>
> --
> Thomas L. Williams, AHIP
> Director, Biomedical Libraries and
>  Media Production Services
> University of South Alabama