Re: AMA pricing and the concurrent user model

[David Goodman <dgoodman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>]

There are clearly two separate communities of users here.

As a non-medical-school site, I cannot imagine that we would ever have
more than 1 concurrent user for any AMA publication except JAMA. Even for
JAMA, I would think we would do very well with 2. If we had a medical
school, things would certainly be very different.

This is one of the cases where ip based access using the whole university
as the pricing base totally impossible for many institutions which have a
different emphasis than the journal publishers were thinking about.

I can see no single model that would work. There is reason for both. But
even concurrent user should be ip based, not password based--though we can
administer passwords properly, it's an extra step for the users--and for
the staff who have to set it up.  And named-workstation models are absurd
for any educational institution--it defeats the basic idea of ejournals.
Whether it makes sense in industry, is a question I leave to those who
know something about it.

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Dave Piper wrote:

> We currently have the concurrent user model.  We find it unsatisfactory
> because of how often our users are not able to get to the article they
> want.  The problem is that when the concurrent user threshold is reached,
> instead of getting some sort of message explaining the problem and
> suggesting they try again later, they are shown a message inviting them to
> purchase the article.  And the way we find out about this is that they
> call the library and say "Did you drop your subscription?"
>
> Regarding concurrent user access--unsatisfactory as it is for us--AMA
> appears to be getting ready to dump that mode of access--at least on
> paper.  You'll note that the institutional subscription options they have
> on their web site refer only to the following types of access:
>    1. site license (IP-based) access (the super-expensive option)
>    2. institutional access based on username/password
>    3. dedicated workstation access (with static IP)
>
> Given the fact that institutions may be balking at paying $100,000+ prices
> for annual site licenses, perhaps the AMA is considering maintaining
> concurrent user access.  If they do and if nothing else changes, that's
> probably the choice we'll continue to go with, problematic as it has been
> for our users.  Our first choice would be IP-based unlimited
> institution-wide access, but only if it comes with a reasonable price tag.
>
> 	Dave Piper, MLS
>         Arizona Health Sciences Library
>         The University of Arizona          dpiper@ahsl.arizona.edu
>         1501 N Campbell Ave                           520.626.2529
>         PO Box 245079                            FAX: 520.626.2922
>         Tucson AZ  85724-5079                 www.ahsl.arizona.edu
>
> Dora Getman wrote:
>
> >Dear all,
> >
> >We asked for 2003 medical univeresities & affiliated hospitals entire
> >online collection quotations. Cost varies from 5 concurrent users @$6,495
> >to 10 concurrent users@13,995. Wide IP address access, no user or
> >password, no dedicated workstations. To us it would appeal.
> >
> >Best,
> >
> >Dora Getman,
> >Head of Acquisitions & Serials
> >Tel Aviv Univ Lib of Life Sci & Medicine
> >dorag@tauex.tau.ac.il