RE: Loyalty fee

["Karl F. Bridges" <kbridges@uvm.edu>]

OK.  Color me naive, but...since this is a consortium...why is 
not the consortium insisting that ALL the members get a deal on 
the price not just the early participants?  That is sort of the 
point of having a consortium isn't it?

Quoting Ivy Anderson <Ivy.Anderson@ucop.edu>:

> I don't think this is a common practice.  It is certainly the
> case that libraries that are 'early adopters' of a product will
> often benefit from better pricing than those who purchase later
> on, for example when taking advantage of a prepublication or
> early release offer, but these situations are usually clearly
> framed as special time-limited offers intended to incentivize
> early investment in an unproven product.
>
> JSTOR offers better pricing to its charter participants, for
> example, because those institutions took a risk in supporting
> JSTOR when it was a new venture.  More similar to the case you
> describe, I'm aware of one instance in which a journal publisher
> has denied to later consortial participants the terms that it
> offered to earlier participants, but in my experience this is
> outside the norm and far less justifiable. To impose such a
> distinction on a mature product and call it a 'loyalty fee' is a
> rather unfortunate (if not subtly manipulative) characterization
> more suitable to commodity purchasing than to complex information
> resources IMO.
>
> Ivy Anderson
> Director of Collections
> California Digital Library
> University of California, Office of the President
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Selma Aslan
> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 6:56 PM
> To: Liblicense
> Subject: Loyalty fee
>
> Hi All,
>
> Looking at the cost sharing model used for a particular product
> within a particular consortium it is identified that considerable
> variations exist among amounts paid by institutions of similar
> nature. When this was queried the explanation was loyalty fee,
> i.e., being an older member of the consortium. The difference
> grows over the years and adjustment has become inevitable. But of
> course this should be done without causing disturbance.
>
> My questions are (a) is loyalty fee a common practice?-- I have
> not come across it in any written source yet and would love to be
> directed. --, (b) If yes, what would be regarded as an acceptable
> ratio?
>
> Thanks
>
> Selma Aslan
> Turkey
>