I do agree with Terry's point about NPG. Especially their creative
interpretation of relevant FTEs for site licences which somehow includes
geologists, physicists and chemists as potential readers of Biomedical and
Medical journals. I think the Springer deal was just the final straw in a
fairly tiresome round of price increases this year and its the one that has
caused me to stop lurking on the list.
I think whereas most of us take NPG titles whether or not we agree with their
policies, the Springer changes may have a dramatic impact on fewer of us - but
it impacts on all 3 Schools for whom I atttempt to manage resources. Hence my
irritation.
Cheers (or not!)
Linda
>>> [log in to unmask] 26/11/2004 11:36:36 >>>
--On 26 November 2004 11:08 +0000 "Lewis Nicholas Mr (LIB) l002"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I expect it's part of
> the Springer/Kluwer merger issue which seeks to standardise the approaches
> for both publishers.
Quite. This reminds me of when Blackwell Science merged with Blackwell
Publishers to become Blackwell Publishing. One company included online
access in the price of a print subscription (like Springer Verlag did); one
charged extra for online access to your print subscriptions (like Kluwer
Academic did). In both cases the merged company has had to try to merge two
different pricing models into one - and the result is pretty similar too!
Springer's new model has the Blackwell Publishing Standard/Premium option
written all over it.
Personally, I think this pales into insignificance compared to Nature
Publishing Group's new policy for Academic & Society journals whereby
(most) of these journals (the ones without Nature in the title) are moving
from online access included with a print subscription to online access
requiring a site licence with pricing based on FTE numbers (very much like
the EMBO Journal situation...)
Terry Bucknell
Electronic Resources Manager
Harold Cohen Library
University of Liverpool
PO Box 123 Liverpool L69 3DA
Tel: +44 (0)151 794 5408 Fax: +44 (0)151 794 5417
Email: [log in to unmask]
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