Re: Response to lib-license email

[Kent Mulliner <mulliner@ohio.edu>]

[MOD NOTE:  The discussion thread re. Elsevier, OhioLink, etc., has
overstepped the parameters of liblicense-l.  Accordingly, this
response will be the last in this series to be forwarded to readers of
the moderated list.  Topics closer to the mission of liblicense-l will
be welcomed, as always.]

Colleagues,

	I previously have worried that Bob Michaelson was creating straw
persons to argue with.  Unfortunately, his latest response continues the
practice. I will not attempt to respond to all of allegations but to
correct a few--by removing those remarks from context and addressing them
at the beginning.  The full exchange follows for late arrivers.  Mr.
Michaelson's assertions are identified with the traditional ">".

>When you give something for free, people will take it -- that is not a
>valid measure of its value.

	I'm not sure of what is meant by "free."  Neither print nor
e-journals (in most cases) are free, yet neither (at my institution) costs
an individual academic department or researcher anything.  Returning to
the Bensman & Wilder study that I cited earlier in this exchange (LRTS,
Vol. 42, No.3) as well as experience, simply having a paper title on the
shelf does not mean that it will be used.  So, people won't necessarily
"take it"  because it's free.

>Your solution is to push increased costs directly onto the State of Ohio,
>and since you don't see the bills for this you no longer think they
>matter?

>This isn't coping, it is caving in -- but if the State is willing to pay
>the bills perhaps you don't care?

	Concatenating two of Mr. Michaelson's statements, it is not clear
that he understands how the OhioLINK e-journal contracts work.  Most of
the cost remains with the individual institutions (not the state of Ohio),
some of which are public and some private.  Even where the individual
institutions are public, state funding accounts for significantly less
than one-half the budget.  Mr. Michaelson is correct that the "increased"
costs were covered by the state, but those costs were primarily to deliver
resources to more institutions, not for more titles, and only a small
percentage of what individual institutions continue to pay collectively.  
One cannot imagine the world Mr. Michaelson inhabits when he talks of "no
longer seeing the bills."

>It would be interesting to learn how you are measuring benefit.  Number of
>journal articles supplied is not, by itself, a good measure of benefit,
>since it treats them all the same.  A serious benefit study would sample
>the dollar benefit to the end-users of the delivered articles. You would
>also want to look at cost-effectiveness: e.g. what would be the cost of
>delivering the same information by alternative means (ILL or document
>supply).  You would certainly want to determine the relative
>cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit of delivering Elsevier and Academic
>vs. delivering (for example) American Chemical Society titles -- in short,
>is the benefit obtained as great as the benefit in spending the same
>amount in some other (dare I say more logical) way?

>Spending huge amounts of money without selection is a pretty poor way of
>thinking "out of the box", IMO. Wouldn't it be better to wait for
>Elsevier, Academic, etc. to offer title-by-title selectivity, and then
>create an electronic package of the titles that are most important for
>your audience (as well as most cost-effective)? What is the rush?  
>Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to offer a first-rate package (Science,
>AIP, ACS journals, even selected Elsevier titles) than to go with a
>decidedly mixed bag from the world's publishing cartels?

	Again concatenating, Mr. Michaelson appears to have lost all sense
of time.  From my recollection, OhioLINK made its initial contracts with
Academic and Elsevier because that was largely the market three or so
years ago.  They were able to deliver content and were willing to
reasonably negotiate with a consortium (something that many scholarly
societies were not at the time (and some still are not).  Mentioning
Science Is like a red flag.  Do Liblicense-L readers recall what I call
Science's "chained book" theory? For a considerable period, Science would
offer library access only to a specific machine (akin to a print
subscription that could only be used at a specified table).  When asked,
Science for many months was unable to deal with dynamic allocation of IP
addresses.  Finally, I'm able to offer Science based on simultaneous
users, but its site license prices are out of this world. So (like
Lancet), users must come into the library building for electronic access.
Fortunately, not all scholarly societies are stuck with yesterday's
paradigms.

	I'm reluctant to even begin to discuss ACS.  Our chemistry
bibliographer, faculty, and researchers have struggled with an
over-extended budget and could not accept the type of premium that ACS
wanted for electronic access (25%!!). And other scholarly societies have
been even more exorbitant.  As we all struggle with the insanity of
electronic pricing (wherein scholarly societies and commercial publishers
seek to assure no diminution in income), the last thing we need is to
encourage publishers (of any ilk) that e-journals are a new cash cow.

	Rather than trying to determine "good guys" and "bad guys' a
priori, why not judge them by what they are doing.  If a scholarly society
is convinced that the only reason that people belong to the society is for
its wonderful journals and, given electronic alternatives, will drop
memberships like last year's skin cells, the way to change behavior is to
just say no to excessive premium's for electronic access. Or did some
think that ACS publications were so great that a 25% premium was a
bargain? > >No doubt Elsevier and Academic gave OhioLINK significant
reductions in >pricing because they needed to get some highly visible
users.  But there >is no such thing as a free lunch -- they aren't being
accomodating >publishers, this is just a part of their cynical marketing
strategy.  You >are playing along with them; one result is that you can't
give us real >dollar figures -- there is no way to give us an analysis
that we could >critique. Moreover, the figures that you have aren't
realistic, since they >are based on the Elsevier/Academic "loss leader". >
>So if you go into a store that has a huge 20%-off sale, and randomly
spend >$1 million, you've saved $250,000!! I'm being frivolous of course,
but so >are you.  A minor cost increase on a huge base-price, for material
that is >mostly of mediocre quality, is no bargain.  A larger cost
increase on >carefully-selected material, at a modest base price, can be a
bargain. >(BTW, the American Chemical Society is significantly _lowering_
its >electronic journal surcharge for 2000. Those of us who buy their
Option B >package will actually be paying less money. This is a bargain on
top of a >bargain!)

Continuing concatenating, I get lost when OhioLINK is criticized for
getting a "loss leader" and "unrealistic" price.  Give me more of those.  
Granted it may not be a price available to all (nor are the headaches of
consortial decision-making), but is ther a moral imperative that I will
pay no less than the most expensive subscription.  It's hard to apologize
for buying "loss leaders."  I also buy 99 cent milk when I get the chance.

Mr. Michaelson offers another straw person in his 20% off sale image. If I
can get 20% off (not the case, but Mr. Michaelson's example) of the titles
to which we were subscribing in any case plus get 100% or 200% more titles
for no additional cost (regardless of quality), then that is savings.  
Even if my users actually use 50% of those additional titles (and provide
me with evidence that those titles are actually used more than many of the
titles to which I had subscriptions), that is savings.

As noted earlier, when ACS begins to be described as a "bargain on top of
a bargain," it is clear that he inhabits a much different world than I
(can Evanston really be so far from Appalachian Ohio?).  At a recent
Charleston Conference, Karen Hunter (of Elsevier) jokingly (I think)
stated that Elsevier would be willing to give all of its journals to all
of the U.S. for the price of a new fighter or bomber?  Now Mr. Michaelson
indicates that it is wonderful that ACS wants only a 25% premium on the
cost of that fighter or bomber.

>Users and librarians around the state see what they are getting, but they
>don't as readily see what they are not getting (lots of higher-quality
>journals), nor do they see what they, as taxpayers, are paying. Most of
>all they do not see the deleterious effect on the world of scholarly
>publishing -- until it is too late.

	It is indeed hard to follow this logic.  Users can see what they
are getting (everything that they had been getting in paper) and much
more.  They can also see what they are not getting (high or low quality),
if they care enough to look.  In fact, a not infrequent question is why
such and such journals are not available electronically.  And the answer
often is that the publisher is greedy, backward, or both.  "Deleterious"
effects arise from rewarding publishing models that do not cap price
increases and accepting the myth that the incremental cost of adding
additional electronic subscriptions justifies double-diget premiums

	As has been previously acknowledged by Tom Sanville (Executive
Director of OhioLINK), none of us know what a desirable or even acceptable
pricing model for e-journals may be.  We should let a hundred flowers
bloom and a thousand thoughts contend, not attempt to consumer attempts to
experimentally participate in developing that model.

	kent mulliner, Ohio University Libraries