Re: Usage-based pricing

["Heather Morrison" <hmorrison@ola.bc.ca>]

David Jones wrote:

>The we could get down to the real issue: how much per download are we
>paying and what is the competition charging!

Good point!  Especially if the competition is open access.  $0.00 per
usage strikes me as a great price!  Much, much better than some of the
other per-usage prices quoted recently on this list, which probably
translate into an average month's salary in many countries.

One of Phil's original questions was whether usage-based pricing would
discourage use.  Based on my experience with interlibrary loan, I know of
many libraries, including smaller universities, colleges, public and
school libraries, that either cannot afford to subsidize this sort of
service, or have to limit the number of articles they can obtain for each
student or patron.  Many individuals would avoid requesting articles based
on some of the prices that have been quoted on this list recently, even
Rick Anderson's relatively benign $5 per article.  This is true even in a
relatively wealthy country like Canada.

I have seen students change their minds when they found out they had to
pay for an interlibrary loan request, even at 10 cents per page for a
short article.  It's enough of a challenge to get undergraduates to begin
to develop an interest in scholarly materials, without placing any kind of
a barrier in their way.

a personal view by,

Heather Grace Morrison
Project Coordinator
BC Electronic Library Network
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