RE: BMC model changes

["T Scott Plutchak" <tscott@uab.edu>]

In November of '02, I listened to a BMC rep announce the institutional
membership program at the Charleston Conference.  She was explicit about
the fact that the program was designed to engage librarians in the task of
promoting BMC on their campuses.  They had observed that while librarians
supported open access in principle, on a day-to-day basis they spent much
more effort promoting resources like ScienceDirect, because they'd spent
money on those.  The membership program was not designed as a funding
strategy, but as a marketing strategy.

So I don't think it's quite accurate to say that "BMC's original fee plan
did not provide sufficient funds..."  Jan can weigh in here and correct me
if I'm wrong, but I don't think the institutional membership plan was ever
intended to cover the costs -- it was intended to get librarians
committed.

I think it was a very smart strategy and BMC was very open about what they
were trying to do (although some librarians didn't listen very well).  
Now they're trying to build on that base to a funding model that does a
better job of recovering the costs.  I don't know if it'll work (I
probably won't continue funding my institution's membership, for example),
but it's a sensible strategy.

T. Scott Plutchak
 
Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham
tscott@uab.edu
http://tscott.typepad.com
http://tscott.typepad.com/bearded_pigs

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of ALBERT@hslc.org
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 5:37 PM
To: LIBLICENSE-L@lists.yale.edu
Subject: BMC model changes

Has anyone noticed that BMC no longer offers an institutional membership
that picks up the article processing fees for authors from that
institution? They are mimicking more of a PLoS model, by offering
supporting memberships that provide a 15% discount on author fees or a
pre-paid membership that includes processing fees paid up front (which
slightly higher discounts, I think) and deducted as they are assessed
throughout the year. I believe this speaks volumes about the question of
the original model's economic sustainability.  In other words, BMC's
original fee plan did not provide sufficient funds for handling the
necessary peer review and publication costs. What do others think? The new
membership plans are described here:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/membership

(I did just notice that new members can join through the end of the year,
using the old institutional membership model- but existing members must
renew using one of the new plans).

Karen Albert, MLS, AHIP
Director of Library Services
Fox Chase Cancer Center
Phila., PA 19111
albert@hslc.org