RE: Price discrimination for academic subscriptions (discussion)

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

Some publishers are still known to try to increase their margins when they
think they can succeed in doing so.

In particular, the pattern of increase in prices for at least one large
publisher certainly shows some elements of concern for what the market
will bear: those journals whose prices are already at the highest levels
are increased very little if at all, while the prices of the relatively
few relatively inexpensive relatively popular titles are increased a much
higher percentage. I do not say this is irrational behavior--it is very
rational behavior--if the prices of the most expensive titles were
increased 10 percent, there would certainly be major subscription loss.

One can also see this by comparing different publishers. Some professional
societies and other non-profit publishers consistently raise their prices
a relatively large amount, with the explicit bare-faced explanation that
they are even so a bargain as compared to the equivalent commercial
publications.

A basic exercise for librarians (and one that I show my students) is to
keep a spreadsheet of prices from year to year, though the increasing
reluctance of publishers to publish their prices and the increasing
prevalence of bundling has made this somewhat more difficult. An outsider
to the publishing industry can learn a lot by careful and skeptical
reading and comparison of price lists, press releases, and statements to
the stockholders or society members.

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

-----Original Message-----
From:	Anthony Watkinson [mailto:anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com]
Sent:	Tue 9/9/2003 7:10 PM
Subject:  Re: Price discrimination for academic subscriptions (discussion)

... I do not think many publishers currently take the view that they set
their prices at whatever level they think the market will stand.

Anthony