Question Re: Company of Biologists - Tier Pricing 2007

["Penny Lochner" <plochner@muhlenberg.edu>]

Hello,

I just read your new tiered pricing schedule. My college falls 
under tier 2 and according to the price schedule, Print + Online 
is cheaper than Print Only for Tiers 1 & 2 but not for Tiers 3 & 
4. Is this correct? If so - thank you - we'll gladly switch to 
Print + Online! Cordially,

_____________________________
Penny Lochner, Serials Librarian
Trexler Library
Muhlenberg College
Allentown, PA 18104-5564
email: plochner@muhlenberg.edu
voice: 484-664-3561
fax: 484-664-3511


>>> nick@biologists.com 9/20/2006 6:26 PM >>>

* 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
Cambridge CB4 0DL, UK
New e-mail: nick@biologists.com