RE: JNCI Cancer Spectrum

["GEDYE, Richard" <gedyer@oup.co.uk>]

Michele Shipley, in her posting just before Christmas, raises two
interesting issues:-

a) The pricing levels for JNCI's enhanced online product, JNCI Cancer
Spectrum

b) The fairness of the FTE model for computing these levels

Perhaps I may be permitted a few paragraphs of liblicense's platform to
comment on each of these issues in turn.

a) Price of JNCI Cancer Spectrum

Oxford University Press (OUP) is a not-for-profit publisher and is
committed to keeping the price of its journals as affordable as possible,
whilst at the same time generating sufficient revenues to ensure that the
high standards of each journal are maintained.  The price for JNCI
reflects the costs of running and producing a world class journal - from
the team of Senior Editors providing additional intellectual, language and
content value to each paper (ensuring that the best research from around
the world is made accessible to the widest possible audience), to the news
editors and freelance writers supplying thoroughly researched commentary
on breaking developments.

OUP has developed JNCI Cancer Spectrum over several years. Working closely
with the oncology community, OUP has invested over a million dollars to
create an online resource that adds greatly to the value of the Journal.
JNCI Cancer Spectrum includes significantly more content, features and
functionality than has previously been available, and we believe this will
make the journal even more useful and accessible.

Online access to JNCI has been free of charge during this development
phase, but now JNCI Cancer Spectrum has been launched as a new product,
with a new price, available separately to the print version of the
Journal. By separating the price for JNCI Cancer Spectrum from the price
for the print version of the Journal, we are able to offer libraries the
option of receiving just the print Journal should they so choose.  The
print price of JNCI remains in line with previous years, and abstracts and
tables of contents online are freely available. For those libraries that
do want to subscribe to JNCI Cancer Spectrum, pricing is based on
institute size, which we believe is fairer than a single price for all.

We believe that both JNCI and JNCI Cancer Spectrum represent good value in
comparison with other journals and online resources of a similar size and
complexity.

b)FTE model for assigning pricing bands

Michele raises an interesting point about what constitutes "relevant" FTEs
in a pricing model based on likely user universes. JNCI contains a mixture
of news, views and research work, which has proven of value not only to
practising and training clinicians, but also to basic researchers in
non-medical departments such as biochemistry, molecular biology,
pharmacology, epidemiology, and statistics, as well as teachers and
trainees in paramedical departments such as nursing. In addition, our
market research tells us that, because of the substantial amount of effort
JNCI devotes to news gathering and analysis, especially in those areas
where the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry sectors are impacted
by the endeavours of the cancer research community, we have a significant
secondary readership in departments of business and law.

For now, for simplicity's sake, we have taken total FTEs as providing a
reasonably accurate guide to the relative sizes of individual
institutional user universes. If, at some point, we find it feasible to
research the FTE counts for all the relevant departments of all our
institutional subscribers, we could, of course, reduce the FTE thresholds
for each of our Small Medium and Large price bands. However, in Michele's
case, unless Rochester has an unusually small medical campus (compared to
other universities) and an unusually large liberal arts campus and school
of music, such a threshold adjustment would not necessarily result in a
transfer to a different price band.


============================
Richard Gedye
Journals Sales and Marketing Director
Oxford University Press
Great Clarendon Street
Oxford
OX2 6DP
UK

Tel: +44-1865-267785 (direct)
Fax: +44-1865-267835
Email: gedyer@oup.co.uk
Web: www.oup.com
============================




-----Original Message-----
From: Shipley, Michele [mailto:Michele_Shipley@URMC.Rochester.edu]
Sent: 22 December 2001 05:31
To: liblicense-l@lists. yale. edu (E-mail)
Subject: JNCI Cancer Spectrum


Hi LibLicense Readers.  I'm trying to find out if other libraries have
decided to subscribe to the new JNCI Cancer Spectrum that replaces the
online version of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.  In 2002
the price for both the print and online versions of the Journal of the
National Cancer Institute will jump from $265 to $1235 for the University
of Rochester.  Price is now based on an institution's FTE and Oxford
University Press insists on using the FTE for the whole University
including a liberal arts undergraduate campus and a School of Music,
instead of the FTE of the medical campus.  This huge price increase seems
particularly unfair since Oxford University Press publishes this journal
for the National Cancer Institute - an agency of the US government.

Michele Shipley
Information Resources Coordinator
Edward G. Miner Library
University of Rochester
601 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY  14642
(716)275-6878
(716)275-4799 (fax)
michele_shipley@urmc.rochester.edu