Hi,
A highly contentious subject this one!
There is no doubt that my institution could be considered as one of
those has "benefited" from many of the "link to print" models, but this
hasn't come free of charge, but has required us to find additional
resources to gain access to these collections.
As an institution with small groups of active researchers in a small
number of selected research areas, but large number of undergraduates
overall, we have never been able to afford many of the titles that our
small band of researchers and indeed our academic staff wanted, as a
result the total number of subscriptions we were able to maintain was
modest. Many of the subscriptions considered essential by one or two
researchers are expensive in terms of the usage that is made of them.
Our focus was primarily on subscriptions to support teaching and
undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes. In fact in the area I
look after, the Natural Sciences, more and more of the subscriptions we
retained or took out subscriptions to were news/review/current
opinion/trends type journals as these were seen as being more valuable
to undergraduate students than primary research journals. If there had
not been a different model forthcoming to the one size fits all
traditional subscription we would have slowly cancelled more and more
primary research journals, as we had had to do previously on an almost
annual basis.
Whilst it is true that institutions such as my own may have benefited by
what maybe be seen as lower additional costs for subscribing to
collections than more research focussed institutions, in reality our use
of these additional resources (and our existing subscriptions) will
never match that of those institutions with historically larger print
subscriptions, because these institutions have the critical mass of
users and research activity that make subscriptions to these titles
justifiable in the first place.
It does seem a much fairer pricing policy to base pricing on how much
use an institution is likely to make of such "subscriptions" than to
have a pricing policy like that of Nature that is based purely on full
FTE figure for all staff, students and researchers. We did manage to
find the money to take out an online subscription to Nature in the end,
but still feel that its pricing model takes no account of the difference
in research activity between different institutions and ultimately the
usage of Nature by each institution. As a result many institutions have
been priced out of the market for Nature, which is a real shame.
With "link to print" models many institutions such as my own have been
priced into the market, not out of it.
Cheers
Lesley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant,
Learning and Information Services,
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB UK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
web: http://www.herts.ac.uk/lis/subjects/natsci/ejournal/
list owner: [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Graeme Forbes
Sent: 03 December 2002 13:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Elsevier
If only it was so simple.
The 'link to print' model actually penalises institutions with larger
print subscriptions and, arguably more 'wanted' titles. Institutions
with fewer printed subscriptions benefit from lower costs and access to
a larger number of titles, some of which they might never have
considered buying.
On purely quantitative grounds is is worth making the basic calculation
of cost divided by number of titles. The result for some institutions
- an average cost of less than 50 GBP per title - might look quite
attractive.
Graeme S. Forbes
Head of Bibliographic Services
National Library of Scotland
Causewayside Building
33 Salisbury Place
Edinburgh
EH9 1SL
Scotland, UK
T: +44(0)131 226 4531 ext. 3735
E: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of E.P. Goldfinch
Sent: 03 December 2002 12:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Elsevier
Since everyone seems to have a view on this one, it would be very
interesting to me, as a publisher, to know whether the packages being
purchased, containing both wanted and unwanted titles, are actually
cheaper than buying only the wanted titles individually. If so, that
would somewhat weaken the cause for complaint.
E.P. Goldfinch
Nuclear Technology Publishing
P.O. Box No 7, Ashford, Kent TN23 1YW, England
VAT No. GB 378 0238 40
IBAN No. GB33MIDL40083231006436
SWIFTCODE: MIDLGB22
Telephone: (+44) (0) 1233 641683
Fax: (+44) (0) 1233 610021
E-mail: <[log in to unmask]>
Web site: <http://www.ntp.org.uk>
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