Elsevier announces 2005 journal pricing

["Menefee, Daviess (ELS)" <D.Menefee@elsevier.com>]

*Please excuse the cross posting*

The following letter has been mailed today to Elsevier customers regarding
journal pricing for 2005.  In addition, the letter can be viewed on the
Elsevier corporate web site at this URL:

http://www.elsevier.com/framework_products/Misc/2005_Elsevier_Pricing_Letter
_cws.doc

Kind regards,
Daviess Menefee
Library Relations


16 July 2004

Dear Librarian, 

As in previous years, we are writing to advise you of developments at
Elsevier and to give you early information on our pricing for the coming
year.

The average increase in our print subscription prices for the calendar
year 2005 will be approximately 5.5%.  Your specific price situation will
depend on the actual mix of print journals you subscribe to, and for
electronic subscriptions it will depend on your ScienceDirect contract and
any specific terms as part of a multiyear agreement.  This is a
meaningfully lower increase than in previous years but we do recognize it
is still above inflation.  Several factors contribute to this. The number
of scholarly papers that Elsevier publish continues to increase annually;
last year the increase was 4%.* Usage as measured by article downloads
continues to rise very significantly; last year it was up 97%. Elsevier
has also continued to invest heavily in product and platform development,
with a total investment over the last five years now reaching $300M.  It
is also important to note that Elsevier has ranked for the past six years
in the lowest quartile of price increases amongst major STM publishers.**

There have been a number of important initiatives over the past year,
including the development of the Scopus database.  Scopus will be the
largest single abstracting & indexing database ever offered, covering more
than 14,000 journals from over 4,000 publishers.  It is a product we are
very proud to bring to market, as it is the result of close cooperation
with library partners working together using evidence-based development.  
The early feedback from these libraries and their users is highly
positive.

In addition, we have essentially completed the digitization of all of the
journal backfiles, a project requiring more than three years to accomplish
and making digital access available back to volume 1, no. 1 for most
journals.

In the coming year, we plan further new initiatives at Elsevier.  On the
technology front, we are currently working with library partners on
Shibboleth, a new authentication system that will facilitate access from
anywhere in the world.  We are hopeful that this will be of real benefit
to all scientists and researchers.

We are also determined to improve our customer service levels.  We are
increasingly aware through research and personal contact that there are
still important opportunities and needs we have to address with our
customers.  We are therefore implementing over the next two years a major
programme, supported by significant investment, to address these needs.  
We are determined to make real changes here and provide a service that
fully meets your requirements.
									
For authors, we have recently clarified that we support their wishes to
post their accepted manuscripts on their institutions' web sites.

As always, we welcome hearing your comments and suggestions on how we can
improve and support you in advancing science and scholarship.  You may
contact us at jongejan.nairn@elsevier.com
<mailto:jongejan.nairn@elsevier.com>.

Kind regards,

Arie Jongejan							
CEO Science & Technology					
Elsevier	
						
Brian Nairn
CEO Health Sciences
Elsevier

Notes

* The number of scholarly papers published in the scientific disciplines
increases approximately 3% annually - Analysis of data extracted from
ISI(c) Science Citation Index (Print Edition 2003)

** When institutional journal price data, taken from official publisher
price lists, is compared for 2003 and 2004.

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