RE: Electronic Nature

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> What this has meant for the University of Houston Libraries 
> is a quote for a 45-50% increase in our costs for electronic 
> access to Nature and 6 Nature monthlies. We signed on to 
> receive access to Nature & 6 Nature research journals in 
> December 2002. The price we were quoted for renewal for 2004 
> is 45-50% more than what we initially agreed to pay.

Jill's institution isn't the only one to have seen a price increase for
Nature publications this year that bordered on the bizarre.  Our initial
renewal quote for Nature and a handful of Monthlies and Review titles was
_60%_ above the price for the previous year (and our FTE had grown by less
than 10%, from 10,077 to 10,869).  Now granted, we had been purchasing
through a consortium in the previous year and were now going solo, but the
consortial discount hadn't been anywhere near 60%.  When I complained, NPG
relented somewhat and came back with a figure that was only(!) 25% higher
than what we had paid the previous year.  We renewed, but if the price
increases again by any significant amount next year, we'll probably have
to look at dropping some of our Nature titles.

----
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
(775) 784-6500 x273
rickand@unr.edu