Elsevier Pricing for 2008

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

*Please excuse any duplication.*

The following letter has been mailed to all Elsevier customers. 
It describes pricing for journals in 2008.

Kind regards,
Daviess Menefee
Library Relations

July 5

Dear Librarian:

During the past year my staff and I have talked extensively with 
customers, receiving guidance on a range of issues from products 
and pricing to service and support. Underpinning all such 
conversations has been the key concept of value. Whether the goal 
is satisfying researchers, clinicians, or institutional 
administrators, librarians and publishers alike are increasingly 
challenged to measure and report on how well our investments 
perform for our organizations and our patrons.

Elsevier is committed to delivering value for customers by 
continually improving our customer service and product 
functionality in addition to supporting ongoing growth in the 
number of articles published and rapidly expanding online usage. 
While we may still have a way to go, we hope that we are making 
positive progress.

Since January 2005, we have systematically surveyed customers 
worldwide every quarter. Your feedback is invaluable in helping 
us to understand how we can improve our customer service. In our 
most recent survey, customers ranked Elsevier higher than other 
publishers in 8 out of 10 categories, an improvement over last 
year. Your suggestions have also enabled us to make further value 
enhancements to the functionality of our products, such as the 
h-index that we recently added to Scopus, and the launch of 4,000 
more e-books on ScienceDirect-representing over 2 million 
additional pages worth of scientific output.

For decades, the number of research articles published each year 
has grown by around 3-4% annually. Last year was no exception and 
in fact, growth of Elsevier-published articles increased above 
this long-term rate. Online usage of Elsevier-published articles 
on ScienceDirect continues to increase by more than 20%: 
ScienceDirect recently passed the milestone of 1 billion articles 
downloaded. This spectacular achievement demonstrates the value 
that your investment in quality content makes for your 
institutional community. Downloads onto the desktops of over 16 
million researchers, clinicians, and students around the globe 
now continue at a rate exceeding on average over 700 articles per 
minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

As we strive to offer more value by improving service and product 
functionality as the number of articles published and downloaded 
continues to expand, Elsevier is targeting a price increase of 
just below six percent on average across our journals in 2008. As 
usual, you can expect the 2008 title-by-title price lists to be 
posted on Elsevier.com

<http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/subscriptionpricelist.librarians/subscriptionpricelist/description

in August. Elsevier's price increase has placed us in the lowest 
quartile of the industry for the past six years, and we hope that 
this year's increase will enable us to remain in this range. As a 
point of reference, the 2007 average increase across all STM 
publishers was 7.89% in Europe and 8.73% in the U.S.*

We recognise that staying the course is not enough. The need for 
a fresh business approach is central to sustaining demonstrable 
value. Elsevier continues to participate in pilots that inform 
new business models. Customers like you have brought to our 
attention the need for models that reflect the value of 
individual journal content, address the challenges of fluctuating 
global currencies, and better reflect equity among institutions. 
Please continue to participate in these discussions with us by 
staying in close contact with your account manager and sharing 
your ideas and opinions.

We are dedicated to continually improving the value we provide to 
customers while making genuine contributions to the scientific 
and medical/healthcare communities. On behalf of Elsevier, thank 
you for helping us improve and for continuing to value our 
content, products, service, and staff. I believe that through 
consistent dialogue, we will achieve even more by working 
together in the year ahead of us.

Sincerely,

Frank Vrancken Peeters

Global Sales Director, Elsevier

*Elsevier's 5.5% price increase in 2007 placed us within the 
lowest quartile of publishers' average price increases when 
institutional journal price data, taken from official publisher 
price lists, is compared between 2006 and 2007. The figure of 
slightly below six percent for 2008 is an average across our 
titles. The cost for your institution's print collection will 
depend upon your particular mix of titles, and that electronic 
subscription fee changes, if any, will depend upon the terms of 
your ScienceDirect contract.

###