RE: Price discrimination for academic subscriptions (discussion)

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

In the print era, it was very different when we paid *for what we might be
likely to use*.  The difficulty in obtaining items rapidly unless they
were purchased in advance of possible use was much greater than it need be
today. Thus, the extent to which a library purchased in advance meant the
extent to which it could promply fill patrons' (unpredictable) needs. The
libaries that could afford to do so extensively were the great libraries,
the ones where good researchers wanted, because they alone could be
efficient for far-reaching requirements.

This of course need not be the case any longer. Thus the point of Phil's
discusssion is that paying by the article is an equalizer--any library
prepared to to buy online material by the article without staff mediation
can deliver anything (that is so available) instantaneously.

The economic problem for the publishers, is that even the best libraries
can also take advantage of this technique, at least for the less-used
materials. Thus the revenue that publishers have been in the habit of
getting from the libraries that bought (almost) everything in advance will
not be there. This revenue can be large, and I am not sure that the
revenue from the many small libraries buying what they previously couldn't
have afforded will equal it. There was a time as selector in such a
library when I would unquestionably buy a $500 journal if it were used
even once every few years, and a $5000 one used a few times a year.  It's
been a while, of course, since I deliberately did that--but the difference
between the major and minor libraries remained the level of cost per use
they were willing to accept. Now it can be the same for everyone.

Will this provide enough revenue to keep the current system going with
affordable prices per use? It would seem in principal that it could be
revenue-neutral. In practice, I suspect that seeing the true costs and use
more directly will and should lead to a somewhat changed system, in which
some types of journals from some sources may no longer have a role.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu

(and, formerly: Princeton University Library)

-----Original Message-----
From:	Phil Davis [mailto:pmd8@cornell.edu]
Sent:	Wed 9/3/2003 6:44 PM
To:	liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Price discrimination for academic subscriptions (discussion)

Heather Morrison provided an excellent response and discussion to my
original post regarding price discrimination.  Without diverting into
arguing over specific details, I would like to resubmit for discussion
that any institutional classification (FTE, Carnegie Class, number of
biologists, etc), are merely estimates of real (or potential) use.  Are
the consequences for paying for what you use any different than paying for
what you *may be likely to use*.  In other words, what would be the
economic effects of moving to an economic pricing model whereby an
institutions's price is at least partly based on that institution's usage
pattern?

--Phil Davis