Variety of Options and Consequences

[Janet Fisher <jfisher@MIT.EDU>]

Dear LibLicense Folks,

I write to respond to the messages on this listserve urging publishers to
offer a variety of options in the electronic environment. I understand
that there is a lot of variety among libraries and how they wish to
incorporate electronic resources into their collection, and that
librarians therefore want publishers to offer a number of options. But
from the publishers standpoint, this is not easy, and adds cost.

We currently have journals in OCLC's ECO system, SwetsNet, Information
Quest, and Ebsco Online. In addition, we have librarians telling us they
want to have the option to get the e-versions directly from us, too. We
hoped that going through aggregators would save us the time and expense of
setting this up on our own site, but now it appears that it won't. For a
medium-sized (small these days) publisher, this is a difficult and
expensive way to do business.

We are certaintly trying to meet the needs of librarians, but it does
create additional pressure on pricing.

Best wishes,


Janet Fisher
Associate Director for Journals Publishing
The MIT Press
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Five Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142-1493 USA
Phone: 617-253-2864
Fax: 617-258-5028
E-mail: jfisher@mit.edu
http://mitpress.mit.edu
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