RE: Librarians, Publishing Behavior, & Open Access

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

When I considered price increases as a selector, I generally looked at two
different statistics, both together with the history of previous increases

1) the % of price increase
2) the  value in $ of the increase

In terms of the overall result in balancing the budget, it's obvious that
the 2nd factor would have the greatest impact in any one year, but I
looked at both in order not to ignore the publishers with lower priced
journals and a history of prices such as $100, $120, $125, $150. Over the
years they add up, and many is the unworthy low priced journal that
escaped cancellation by virtue of being priced below the attention point.

At this point, there was no standard--no level which we could say: if the
publisher exceeded this, it was no much. (The double digit value was just
a convenient way of talking--if it's 10% or higher it is certainly too
much, but that doesn't get us far towards balancing a budget.) Now there
is: the American Physical Society price schedule. On that basis , the
maximum acceptable price increase is : zero%, and publishers should be
judged on the basis of how much they decrease the prices each year.

Conceivably there may be some reason for an exception, but anything above
that value needs special justification, because all factors of general and
academic inflation (not to mention OA)  affect the APS as well.

Where we can certainly agree, is that the publishers ultimate rate of
return is not a key factor--this is affected by many intermediate steps
both in nonprofit and profit making organizations, such as taxation ,
borrowing, and the allocation of overhead. This is the publisher's concern
with respect to its own stockholders or society members. What concerns
libraries ought rather to be the price asked. If a publisher can work so
efficiently as to be able to reduce prices and still make a good profit,
that profit should not lower them in our estimation.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu 

________________________________

From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Mcsean, Tony (ELS)
Sent: Tue 2/8/2005 11:47 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Librarians, Publishing Behavior, & Open Access

The corporation providing the quotation in Bill's contribution may well be
Elsevier, and I feel that it's worth pointing out that earnings per share
(EPS) are pretty well independent of pricing policy.  We can all point to
examples where a company's financial performance has suffered through high
price increases and others where the same thing has happened through low
price increases.  EPS targets hang on strength of product line, costs, new
products, acquisitions and de-mergers - just to name a few factors not
involving accountancy.

Happily, the mention of double-digit price rises can't be Elsevier, since
five years ago we pledged ourselves to increases which were both single
digit and at the bottom end of the industry range.  In 2005 this
translated to an overall increase of 5.5%, with continuing profitability
sustained (we trust!) by these other means.

As you can imagine, I have a particularly personal stake in the idea that
some in our profession are trying to work with the for-profit industry.

Tony

Tony McSean
Director of Library Relations
Elsevier
+44 7795 960516
+44 1865 843630