FW: Company of Biologists - Tier Pricing 2007

["Nick Birch" <nick@biologists.com>]

* apologies for cross posting *

The Company of Biologists is adopting a tiered pricing system for 
its journals, Development, Journal of Cell Science and The 
Journal of Experimental Biology from 2007 onwards.

The description of the tiers and their prices can be found at:

http://www.biologists.org/subscriptions/instsubs.shtml

Like other not-for-profits tiered pricing schemes, the Company of 
Biologists' version is a five tier system based loosely on the 
Carnegie classifications. Tier 1 is largely for public libraries, 
schools and museums; tier 2 for undergraduate universities, small 
hospitals and nonprofit organisations; tier 3 for research 
universities, medical schools, teaching hospitals, national 
libraries and small companies; tier 4 for larger research 
universities, larger research organisations, medium companies and 
tier 5 for very large multi-campus universities, buying groups 
including consortia, affiliated laboratories and larger companies 
and corporations. Tier 5 prices are individually negotiated 
between the subscriber or their agent and the Company of 
Biologists.  The link above links through to a more detailed 
description of each tier which is intended help institutions 
understand their tier allocation. Any questions relating to tier 
allocations should be sent to sales@biologists.com and we will be 
happy to work with librarians and their agents to arrive at the 
correct allocation.

The Company of Biologists operates as a not-for-profit, 
charitable organization that, via its journal publication 
programme, supports the wider biological community through its 
Scientific and Educational Fund which provides regular grants to 
societies active in the fields of the journals, financing for 
conferences and summer schools, traveling fellowships and grants 
to junior scientists. Subscription revenue from the journals 
provides the majority of the income that supports these 
activities. In looking at alternative pricing strategies the 
Company of Biologists is not seeking to increase its revenue 
beyond that increase made necessary by inflation, but rather to 
arrive at a model which represents a fair and sustainable one 
into the future.

Online access policies and archive provision

In making this change the Company of Biologists is not in any way 
changing its online access policies. All material older than 6 
months remains freely available to all. The free archive 
provision has now been extended to include all issues back to 
volume 1, issue 1 of 1923 for of the Journal of Experimental 
Biology, 1966 for Journal of Cell Science and 1987 for 
Development. Work continues to make all remaining issues of 
Journal of Cell Science and Development freely available and 
further announcements about this will be made shortly.

Although under this new system online and print plus online 
prices may be higher for some institutions, the Company of 
Biologists has kept increases in print subscriptions to a minimum 
for current print only subscribers and introduced lower tiers 
which will mean a substantial discount for around 25% of current 
subscribers. This model is intended to acknowledge the differing 
values of simultaneous online access to different institutions in 
relation to their size and potential usage and provide equitable 
prices for the wide range of institutions that benefit from 
access to the Company of Biologists' journals.

Please contact me at nick@biologists.com if you have any queries 
about the new pricing system.

Nick Birch
Sales and Marketing Manager
The Company of Biologists Limited
Bidder Building
140 Cowley Road
Cambridge CB4 0DL, UK

Tel: +44 1223 426164 ext 221
Fax: +44 1223 423353
New e-mail: nick@biologists.com

Company Limited by Guarantee No 51435. Registered Charity No 277992