RE: Price discrimination for academic subscriptions (discussion)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> I would like to resubmit for discussion
> that any institutional classification (FTE, Carnegie Class, number of
> biologists, etc), are merely estimates of real (or potential) use.  Are
> the consequences for paying for what you use any different than paying for
> what you *may be likely to use*.

It might be more accurate to say that pricing based on FTE is based on
likely server load.  A school with 30,000 students will usually put
greater strain on an e-publisher's resources than a school with 1,000
students. You're right, though, that it's a game of probabilities -- a
smaller school could generate more hits than a larger one, depending on
the product, the curriculum, etc.

> In other words, what would be the
> economic effects of moving to an economic pricing model whereby an
> institutions's price is at least partly based on that institution's usage
> pattern?

The obvious problem is that you don't know what your usage pattern will be
until you start using the product.  Are you suggesting that publishers
wait to invoice us until we've used the product for a year?  Or are you
proposing a by-the-drink pricing model?  The latter is more strongly
resisted by librarians than by publishers, I think...

-------------
Rick Anderson
Director of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
(775) 784-6500 x273
rickand@unr.edu