Re: Per View E-Journal Article Services

[David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>]

>From my perspective in a library, the problem with single-article access
is the cost. Basically, publishers all ask the same royalty whether the
article is merely browsed, or whether it is printed. Since in many field
academic users may browse many articles for each one they decide to print
or download, it would be very difficult for any academic library to afford
this except for the most obscure titles.

Though I am not a technical specialist, I have understood that the ability
to differentiate between the two intensities of use is now possible; I
think this might be a promising direction to pursue.

anthony.watkinson wrote:
> 
> As a former publisher, who has felt for some time that offering single
> articles electronically was an obvious step to take assuming a satisfactory
> micropayment arrangement, I am greatly encouraged by this news. The problem
> has been that many publishers, non-profit and profit alike, have been
> worried about easy availability of individual articles because they see this
> availability as undermining subscription income. There is also the delay in
> serious thinking on this point which has resulted from the difficulty of
> getting a reliable supply of electronic files and also the appropriate
> infrastructure.
> 
>  It seems to me probable that decisions on which subscriptions a library can
> afford to pay are not going to be influenced by electronic availability of
> individual articles. Concepts of core and non-core and of course money are
> the influential factors. However there is little evidence on this point and,
> for example, even the senior staff of UnCover, with whom I talked on this
> matter at the last Charleston conference, were divided on whether, from a
> publishing viewpoint, such availability might or might not have a negative
> impact.
> 
> As many of you will know, the leading vendors/agents in their online
> aggregation offerings potentially can offer single articles to
> non-subscribers electronically, but, as I understand it, they have not moved
> forward very rapidly on implementing this service, not just because of
> publisher reluctance but also because of unclear signals coming from the
> library community.
> 
> What I can tell Gerry Mckiernan, on the basis of a large number of recent
> conversations with British learned society publishers for another purpose,
> is that opinion in that sector at any rate appears to be shifting in favour
> of allowing the sale of single articles over the Web and that this is likely
> to be through the sort of seamless services he is keen on.
> 
> But there is also the question of cost. It is not much good articles being
> available in this way if the cost is prohibitive - is it?
> 
> Anthony Watkinson

-- 
David Goodman 
Biology Librarian, Princeton University Library 
dgoodman@princeton.edu         http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/
phone: 609-258-3235            fax: 609-258-2627