American Journal of Hypertension (NPG) increases site license prices for 2010 by up to 55%

[<bernd-christoph.kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de>]

[Please excuse duplicate reception]

Tired of tiered pricing?

In response to the ICOLC Statement on the Global Economic Crisis 
and Its Impact on Consortial Licenses (or not?) the American 
Journal of Hypertension, since 2008 published with Nature 
Publishing Group, has apparently now introduced tiered pricing 
and thereby will increase its site license price for academic 
institutions in between 19% to 55%, depending on Sciences FTE. 
For the lowest FTE price bracket, 1-499 FTE, price will increase 
by a mere 3% (near the median price increase of NPG academic 
journals for 2010). 2010 site license prices are now USD 986 / 
807 EUR / GBP 519 (UK,ROW) for 10000+ FTE, the base price in the 
lowest bracket is USD 657 / EUR 538 / GBP 346. The price increase 
of AJH from 2008 to 2009 had been 11%. The journal publishes 12 
issues/year with ca. 1350 p.

In the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports, category 
"Peripheral Vascular Disease", AJH is ranked #19 out of 56 in 
Impact factor (2008: 3,122), and #12 in Eigenfactor score (behind 
journals like Hypertension (American Heart Association / LWW), 
Journal of Hypertension (International and European Society of 
Hypertension / LWW), and Am J Physiol C-Heart (American 
Physiological Society).

(Note that the current pricing calculator at 
http://www.nature.com/libraries/site_licenses/pricing.html 
displays for this title tiered pricing for 2009 also, so that no 
price change becomes apparent in comparing 2009 and 2010 price 
levels, which are displayed side by side. However, I happened to 
find an archived output of May 15, 2009 from the pricing 
calculator on the web at the Kenezy Life Sciences Library, 
University of Debrecen, Hungary, that confirmed our previous 
pricing)

The two sister journals from this field at NPG, Hypertension 
Research (Japanese Society of Hypertension Research, 7% price 
increase for 2010) and the Journal of Human Hypertension (3,5% 
price increase for 2010), desisted from introducing tiered 
pricing so far. Through NPG, both provide free access after 5 
years, AJH has a closed archive (just like the Journal of 
Hypertension, too). For comparison: Hypertension and Am. J. 
Physiol. C-Heart provide free access after 12 months.

Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library