Re: Elsevier's Approach to Pricing

[James Mouw <mouw@midway.uchicago.edu>]

I could not agree more with Kitty's statements.  The imposition of the
registration requirement for non-subscribed titles is a major barrier to
usage.  Several of our users have expressed their frustration by a very
"creative" use of login and password language - let's just say that that
words wouldn't make it on prime-time TV.

We've talked to Elsevier about this, and they seem to understand our
issues, but I'm not sure if the situation will actually change in either
the near or long term.  This seems to be an area where the academic
perspective isn't quite the same as the corporate one - where the need to
track individual usage is apparently important.  We've said "give us the
choice".  We are also concerned that our monthly statistics show userid
in conjunction with usage - this is a piece of information that we really
don't want to have.

Jim Mouw
The University of Chicago Library


At 06:32 PM 9/22/99 -0400, you wrote:
>I find myself forced to respond to this posting. From our experience with
>PEAK and now ScienceDirect I definitely agree our patrons are using a
>wider range of titles than in the days of only print. This is all to the
>good as we couldn't possibly subscribe to every journal our patrons might
>need.
>
>Why then did we just get hit with a policy which makes this new wide
>access a travesty? One of the problems with PEAK as well as the electronic
>collections of some other publishers was the requirement for individual
>registration. From my experience in two different libraries, I can vouch
>for the fact that every roadblock thrown up means a group of users who
>turn away. It seems like Elsevier was making their ScienceDirect access as
>easy as possible for users.  Well yesterday we found out that each and
>every Vanderbilt user must set up individual registration to be able to
>use SD titles for which we have no print subscription.  BOY IS THIS A STEP
>BACKWARDS. It could very well be that the positive feedback I have been
>hearing from faculty here will hit a sudden brick wall when they next try
>to access that journal title that was becoming a new favorite.
>
>Kitty Porter
>Stevenson Science & Engineering Library
>419 21st Avenue South
>Vanderbilt University
>Nashville TN 37240
>Phone: 615-343-7106
>Fax:  615-343-7249
>Email: porter@library.vanderbilt.edu