Thank you so much, Lesley, for pointing to the JISC site on institutional
bands in the UK.  Tiered pricing is a personal non-favorite of mine, being
at an institution that always falls into the top tier.  For some journals
with a very large reader base, tiered pricing is acceptable.  But for most
titles that are published for a specific discipline, tiered pricing makes no
sense at all.  It is, as you say, a very crude model.

I was not familiar with the "band" model previously.  Based on a cursory
look at the JISC site, my sense is that it works because it uses the
readily-available data from the central HE and FE funding agencies.   It's
an elegant model (if I understand it correctly), but not one we could easily
emulate in the States.  There isn't a single agency that provides funding to
all colleges and universities here.  And many institutions aren't all that
transparent about their budgets or funding sources.  I really like the idea
of bands, however, and I wonder if there might be something that might serve
a similar function for US academic libraries.  All I can think of at the
moment are ARL stats, which wouldn't apply to most institutions, and are
somewhat unreliable (imho).

What options are there to replace tiered pricing?  Simultaneous users and
users-by-discipline have their own pitfalls (although tiered pricing is the
most egregiously unfair!)  What other measures could we use?

I hope this isn't something that's been discussed to death and you are all
tired of and can't believe someone is bringing up AGAIN (being the last to
know can be so embarrassing).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/weekinreview/02goodnough.html


-- 
Mary Page
Head of Acquisitions
Rutgers University Libraries
47 Davidson Road
Piscataway, NJ  08854

732-445-5894
732-445-5888 fax

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[log in to unmask]



On 9/5/07, Lesley Crawshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Having received a few emails off list on the subject of tiered pricing for
> the University of Chicago Press journals from 2007 we've recently been
> informed by our agent, that SLACK Inc. is also introducing tiered pricing
> based on total institutional FTEs for its titles from 2008.
>
> It will no longer be offering free online access via password from 2008,
> instead there is a choice of print only or print/online with up charge.
> 2008
> online access will require an electronic access subscription with pricing
> by
> tier and authentication via IP address.
>
> We already upgraded all our SLACK subscriptions to print/online with up
> charge and access via IP for 2007 at an additional cost, now we find that
> we
> will probably have to pay more as this up charge will be based on the
> following tiers:
>
> FTE:
> 1-250
> 251-3,000
> 3,001-10,000
> 10,001-20,000
> 20,001-50,000
>
> There is nothing as far as I can see on the SLACK Inc. site at:
> http://www.slackinc.com/default.asp about these changes or the costs of
> this
> tiered pricing, so it isn't very transparent.
>
> Once again I am concerned that institutional pricing based on the total
> number of institutional FTEs is a very crude pricing mechanism for
> journals
> whose audience is a sub-set of the total institutional FTEs. In the UK we
> have JISC Band which I believe is much fairer as it is based on central
> funding rather than student/staff numbers/FTEs - see
> http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/jisc_banding.aspx.
>
> It maybe that publishers need to think again about basing pricing on total
> institutional FTEs?
>
> Cheers
> Lesley
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty InformationConsultant,
> Learning and Information Services
> University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> email: [log in to unmask]
> phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
> 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 Lesley Crawshaw
> Sent: 03 September 2007 15:58
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: How Fair Are Tiered Pricing Models Based on Total Institutional
> FTEs? - University of Chicago Press's Enterprise-Wide Access Policy
>
> Hi,
>
> There is an increasing "drip drip drip" of publishers moving to more
> complex
> pricing policies year on year, although there are a few who are making
> their
> policies simpler e.g. American Meteorological Society.
>
> When the University of Chicago Press moved its journals (with a few
> exceptions) to a tiered pricing model based on FTEs in 2007 I am sure we
> weren't the only institution that decided that we would move all the
> affected subscriptions to the option of the Non-Enterprise wide licence-
> limited concurrency of 1 and not move to the tiered pricing model.
>
> Partly, this was because we didn't have time to look into the full impact
> of
> the additional cost of having to move to a Tier 4 institution (having to
> deal with all the other changes affecting our subscriptions for 2007), but
> also because it seems profoundly unfair for the pricing for these journals
> to be based on the total number of users (primarily undergraduates) across
> all disciplines irrespective of the numbers of FTEs that are likely to
> want
> to access any particular title. Why should specialised titles with a very
> limited audience have to have their pricing based on the total number of
> FTEs within an institution? This approach may be just about acceptable
> with
> titles with a broader audience  like Nature, but I am very uneasy about
> the
> same approach being carried out with specialist primary research journals.
>
> Having just worked out the cost of moving all our University of Chicago
> Press subscriptions for 2008 from an online only Non-Enterprise wide
> licence
> - limited concurrency of 1 to a Tier 4 online only Enterprise wide license
> we would need to find an additional $1852 i.e. a 66% increase in price!
> Whilst from a practical point of view (for us and our users) I would
> prefer
> to move these subscriptions to the Enterprise wide license with no
> restrictions on usage, but how can I possibly justify such a large price
> increase on what we currently pay?
>
> When I checked the usage (excluding the astronomy titles as this new
> pricing
> doesn't apply to them) the highest number of successful full text
> downloads
> for a title in 2006 was 110. For all the other titles the usage was under
> 25
> per title.
>
> Now some people might argue that with such low usage taking out the online
> only Non-Enterprise wide licence- limited concurrency of 1 for all our
> subscriptions was the sensible route for us and the usage statistics back
> up
> that decision. My concern is that any concurrency restriction is a major
> hindrance to trying to promote journals to our community. This concurrency
> of one seems to be a particularly restrictive option. How do such policies
> fulfil this publisher's mission to "always improve the unrestricted flow
> of
> knowledge through information access to as many people as possible"?
>
> To add insult to injury the new perpetual access is only available to
> Institutional Enterprise Wide License subscribers at no additional charge,
> whereas those of us with the Non-Enterprise wide licence- limited
> concurrency of 1 would have to pay an annual maintenance fee to retain
> access to content published during the subscription pricing period.
>
> There were some murmurings of discontent on liblicense about this
> particular
> publishers pricing policy at the beginning of the year, but I wondered
> what
> members of this list thought about this change in policy as it enters its
> 2nd year.
>
> Cheers
> Lesley
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty InformationConsultant,
> Learning and Information Services
> University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> email: [log in to unmask]
> phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
> list owner: [log in to unmask]
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>