Hi,
In reply to Laura Cox's message under the Elsevier heading
I wouldn't say we were reluctant to move to online only, and you are
quite right that in some cases e.g. Journal of Biological Chemistry
there are significant savings, but in most cases the savings are
marginal, but............
One of the problems with moving to e-only relates to the complexity and
variety of the licensing which applies to online journals, which varies
from publisher to publisher, of which there are many. This is a real
headache for those moving to online only. With a print journal you owned
what you paid for. Then there are forward moving walls. Another
complexity is that many publishers have different pricing policies which
may depend on how many workstations one has, how many users in a
particular area, how many FTEs in the institution, how many postdoctoral
student in a faculty etc. etc. All this creates a lot of additional work
when moving existing subscriptions to online only and confusion about
what one has access to (if anything) if an online journal gets
cancelled.
In many cases with a ejournal you are now longer "buying" that journal
but "leasing" it. Cancelling many online only subscriptions can lead to
a total loss of access to all content. Some of the "leasing"
arrangements give you access to all available online content, which can
have advantages whilst you continue to maintain the subscription.
For example we cancelled our Optical Society of America print journals a
couple of year ago and moved to an online only combination package,
which did give some savings. However, we are also aware that we only
have access to this collection whilst we maintain a current
subscription. This is what I call a "lease" model.
Another example is with BMJ Publishing, if we move to online only and
cancel any of the subscriptions in the future, we would not have any
rights for those years we have subscribed to the online journals. Again,
this is what I call a "lease" model. Their pricing is based on the
number of Relevant Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) at each site - an
additional complexity.
In other cases if you move to e-only you have to purchase backfiles in
order to be able to access all available online content, but at least
this means that you "own" those backfiles you purchased.
For example we are cancelling the print versions of our two American
Meteorological Society journals and moving to online only from 2003.
However in order to access more than the 2003 online content, we have
made a decision to purchase a five year backfile at a one-off cost.
Their pricing was was based on how many workstations you had under the
IP range, which is a very crude indicator of the population who actually
would be interested in this title.
I have many more examples if you want.
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 Laura Cox
Sent: 05 December 2002 11:26
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Elsevier
It is common to find usage stats supporting the previously 'unwanted'
titles, for example, the OhioLink library consortium found that 52% of
usage came from titles not previously subscribed to. I would be
interested in understanding a little more about libraries reluctance to
move to e-only subscriptions, particularly considering the savings
offered by some publishers.
Laura Cox
Consultant
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mieko Yamaguchi
Sent: 03 December 2002 19:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Elsevier
On Tue, 3 Dec 2002, E.P. Goldfinch wrote:
> 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.
Packages such as ScienceDirect and IDEAL of course contain both wanted
and unwanted titles for most libraries. Deciding which titles are
wanted or unwanted is not that easy, however. We compared the list of
titles to which we did not subscribe in print and the additional cost of
gaining access to those titles through cross-access and decided to
subscribe to the Elsevier ScienceDirect package but not to the IDEAL
package. We placed instead individual new orders which we had been
holding back for titles in the IDEAL package. So you could say we
decided to buy only the "wanted" titles individually rather than
purchasing the whole package.
I was surprised when I first saw our ScienceDirect usage statistics
because the majority of the most popular titles (based on full-text
downloads) were titles which we had never subscribed to or which we had
cancelled in the past. We were still receiving current issues of certain
titles in print at the time which might have affected the usage.
One year later 17 out of the top 30 titles are those which we had in
print until the end of 2001. Six had been cancelled between 1981 and
1996 mostly for financial reasons. The other seven were never
subscribed to by this library. In a multi-disciplinary library it is
not easy to guess which are "wanted" or "unwanted" titles in a
multi-disciplinary package.
One thing seems clear. The titles we subscribed to in print until the
end of last year were not necessarily the titles that were "wanted"
most.
Mieko
-----
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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