Re: The Journal of Experimental Biology - price increase

[David Stern <david.e.stern@yale.edu>]

"fairer" may be an adequate description of current tiered pricing 
models, but it is not as "fair" as an initial FTE (or Carnegie 
research level) designation which is modified after analyzing 
actual use data. Total organizational size does not always relate 
to discipline intensity of use -- imagine a small department 
within a large university.

I would suggest initial tier projections modified over time for 
anomalous use data situations.  This allows for easy initial 
designations and future pricing based upon actual behaviors.

Fair can be tailored now that we have actual use data for the 
first time.

David Stern
Director of Science Libraries and Information Services
Kline Science Library
david.e.stern@yale.edu


Quoting "Sally Morris (Chief Executive)" <sally.morris@alpsp.org>:

> This is the problem with any improved pricing structure - there 
> are winners and losers. Those who win will love it. Those who 
> lose will hate it. Never mind that it's fairer - heavy users 
> tend to be large, vocal and influential customers.  What's a 
> publisher to do?
>
> Sally Morris, Chief Executive
> Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
> Email: sally.morris@alpsp.org
> Website:  www.alpsp.org
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Nick Birch" <nick@biologists.com>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; <sts-l@ala.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 12:07 AM
> Subject: RE: The Journal of Experimental Biology - price increase
>
> > The Journal of Experimental Biology
> >
> > David Stern and I have had some direct e-mail contact on the point
> > he raised a few days ago about the 2007 price rise for the Company
> > of Biologists' journal, The Journal of Experimental Biology. However
> > I think it might be useful to offer some clarification on our 2007
> > pricing policy for liblicense users generally.
> >
> > Whilst I'm obviously not able to go into details about Yale's
> > negotiations with the Company for 2007 subscriptions, I can confirm
> > that David's posting was based on a misapprehension about what Yale
> > is currently paying for its 2006 subscription.
> >
> > In fact the year on year price increase proposed by CoB on a like
> > for like renewal basis is 5% as is the case with the majority of our
> > tier 5/multi-site subscribers.
> >
> > In adopting a tiered pricing system we have been very aware of the
> > need think extremely carefully about price increases generally and
> > especially for the largest institutional users. Under our system,
> > the maximum any institution could pay more than before is 15%, many
> > smaller institutions will actually be paying rather less than in
> > 2006 and probably the largest percentage will see their prices
> > increase by around 5%. Those institutions moving from print plus
> > online to online only would see significant reductions on their 2006
> > prices.
> >
> > As has been announced we do not anticipate increasing our revenue
> > through adopting tiered pricing by any more than is neccesary to
> > cover the rate of inflation. Instead we are trying to adopt a system
> > that is fairer for all institutions in relation to their size and
> > potential usage.
> >
> > Nick Birch
> > Sales and Marketing Manager
> > The Company of Biologists Limited
> > Cambridge CB4 0DL, UK
> > www.biologists.org
> > Please note new e-mail: nick@biologists.com
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu]On Behalf Of David Stern
> > Sent: 16 November 2006 15:34
> > To: sts-l@ala.org; liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> > Subject: The Journal of Experimental Biology - price increase
> >
> > The Journal of Experimental Biology
> > The Company of Biologists Ltd
> >         http://jeb.biologists.org/
> >
> > While I applaud innovation and fair pricing, the new tiered
> > pricing system represents an increase from just over $1,000 to
> > just over $4,000 for large research libraries.
> >
> > Perhaps there is a way to move to this scheme, providing less
> > cost to smaller libraries, without doing it in one year through
> > untenable price increases to large libraries?
> >
> > David Stern Director of Science Libraries and Information Services
> > Kline Science Library
> > david.e.stern@yale.edu