Reducing cost of Elsevier Science Direct: SUMMARY

["Watson, Jennifer E" <jwatso21@utmem.edu>]

How to save money on Science Direct

Thanks to everyone who sent comments and suggestions on how to 
save money on a Science Direct license. The general consensus is 
that it is hard to save money on Science Direct. There is also 
some suggestion that Science Direct has restructured pricing so 
that it is more heavily based on number of users and on usage. 
This has led to price increases beyond what libraries have seen 
in recent years. On a positive note, one respondent said that a 
budget cut can turn out to be a good thing in the long run, as it 
can force vendors to have to renegotiate with the library, 
resulting in a better deal.

I've summarized the responses below in a deliberately vague 
manner to preserve the confidentiality of contract negotiations 
and terms.

Responses:

- Drop print copies of titles and save 10%

- negotiate a 4% (i.e. small) cut

- reduce the number of titles in a shared title list (for 
consortia)

- just purchase a few titles, then get pay-per-view to access the 
rest. Or just get pay-per-view and no subscriptions. You may find 
that PPV is used less than you expected, and for different titles 
that you would have selected for subscriptions.

- If your price has increased due to the restructured pricing, 
analyze the usage and users yourself and make a counter-offer

- Get your library committee on board as you work to cut 
subscriptions, and make campus faculty aware of the high cost of 
Science Direct subscriptions and/or negotiation difficulties. 
Faculty can obtain articles through ILL or from colleagues at 
other institutions.

- Ask faculty to rank your Science Direct subscriptions, and then 
just subscribe to the highest ranking ones.

-Analyze your usage data. You may find that backfiles get better 
use than current subscriptions.

-Handle Elsevier print subscriptions for all your departments on 
campus (i.e. individual departments that like to have their own 
print copy of a journal). That way, you only have to pay a top-up 
fee for online access, not the entire fee.

-Negotiate a good deal for journals, when purchasing e-books.

-Get access to another institution's subscription. It's cheaper 
than having your own subscription.

-Negotiate a price cap, e.g. 5.5%, on a multi-year agreement.

-Cancel other Elsevier products to help pay for the increased 
cost of Science Direct

-Refuse the initial proposal and demand a better deal.

Jennifer Watson   jenniferwatson@tennessee.edu
Assistant Professor/Head, Electronic & Collection Services
University of Tennessee Health Sciences Library


-----Original Message-----
From: Watson, Jennifer E
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 1:42 PM
To: 'liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu'
Subject: Reducing cost of Elsevier Science Direct

Dear LibLicensers,

Apologies if this topic has been discussed before - I'm finding 
the archive search feature of this list rather unproductive 
today.

Like many libraries, we are facing a budget shortfall. We're 
currently looking at the elephant in our collection, which is 
Elsevier Science Direct. Last year we purchased a bunch of titles 
to our "subscription turnover" level (about 300 titles), plus a 
shared title list of about 1000 titles (we joined a small 
consortium for this). For 2009 we hoped to save money by pulling 
out of the consortium and its shared title list and just 
purchasing about 260 "subscription turnover" titles. To our 
dismay, the quote we have received for 2009 is twice as high as 
what we paid in 2008.

I just wondered if anyone else has had success in containing or 
reducing costs for Science Direct. I'd appreciate any pointers 
you can give me.

Thanks for your help.

Jennifer Watson   jenniferwatson@tennessee.edu
Assistant Professor/Head, Electronic & Collection Services University of
Tennessee Health Sciences Library