Re: Elsevier 'associated' subscriptions -John Lucas Ham, Debra 20 Apr 2005 18:36 UTC
The problem I'm having is justifying $10,000 for 52 issues. Even if the journal was replete with graphics in color, there is no way 52 issues should run in the $10,000 range. If the publisher has costs so high that they need to charge that much for 52 issues to still make a profit, I think they should go to electronic only editions. When we first ordered these titles, they were seen as "essential" by the faculty, but I doubt any of the professors noticed it at all when these 3 titles were cancelled (judging by usage statistics). Debra Ham Library Specialist, Serials Reinert Alumni Memorial Library Creighton University 2500 California Plaza Omaha, NE 68178 dldham@creighton.edu -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Kim Maxwell Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 12:48 PM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Elsevier 'associated' subscriptions -John Lucas You're missing the point. It isn't that the journal only costs $500 so why are institutions being charged $10,000. It's that *because* the institution pays the $10,000, Elsevier feels they can then charge just $500 for personal subscriptions. They describe the associated personal price fee as follows: "As a service to your scientific community, we are able to offer those associated with institutions where a regular rate subscription is currently in place, the opportunity to subscribe at a low price. Associated Personal Subscriptions are sold at a price which covers our print run-on, despatch and handling costs only. Now you can receive your own copy, delivered to you personally, without waiting for your turn on the circulation list." Just to be clear, I'm not defending Elsevier's pricing structure at all. I think there are a myriad other ways they could develop a pricing model that would work better for all different kinds of institutions. However, librarians seem to think we're all in this scholarly communication thing together, and that everyone should play fairly and in the best interests of scholarship. I'm not sure I still believe that's true. Kim Maxwell At 09:02 AM 4/20/2005 -0500, you wrote: >Tetrahedron Letters, Tetrahedron and Tetrahedron are all very expensive >titles -- even for institutions. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense >to me, that the publisher can give a professor an individual rate of >less than $500 (which if you read their website, it says it covers >costs >only) and then charge over $10,000 for an institution to receive the >same journal. Seems to me that if it is only costing the publisher less >than $500, that having the institutional price over $10,000 is one heck >of a markup. We used to subscribe to all three of these and had to cut >them one by one when budgets were not keeping up with the increases in >serials pricing. I realize that these journals are considered cutting >edge research, but I don't think the pricing structure is reasonable at >all. > > >Debra Ham