This year we only had to deal with former Academic Press titles but
after several versions of spreadsheets (often with errors) we ended
up preparing a spreadsheet of our own with what we believed to be the
correct price to send to our Elsevier rep before we could reach an
agreement.
We were also totally confused about Elsevier's own Euro/Dollar exchange
rate. They insist on restoring subscriptions to any titles cancelled
during the last few years and calculate the price of the package using the
current Euro price of the titles we used to subscribe to. This proved far
more expensive than the previous quotes based on the Dollar price of the
same titles inflated by annual percentage increases. In the end we
concluded that cross access to the entire AP package was not worth the
additional charge and settled for e-access to those titles we still take
in print.
As long as Elsevier's pricing is based on what the library used to
subscribe to at some point in the last century (minus those titles they
no longer publish) I fear price calculations are not going to get any
easier.
On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Jacqueline Knowles wrote:
> A chance query two weeks ago propmted Elsevier to send me confirmation
> of our 2003 quote - surprise surprise this bore no resemblance to the
> one I had been previously sent. It noted a totally different Academic
> Press base price and used a 'different' exchange rate (Dollar to Euro).
> The final result is that my original pricing for the AP deal worked out
> in June is now wrong by almost £4000 (underestimated of course!)
Mieko
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Mieko Yamaguchi [log in to unmask]
Technical Services Manager/System Coordinator +44 (0)1248 382970
Main Library, University of Wales Bangor, UK +44 (0)1248 382979 (Fax)
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