From: Mary Summerfield <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:45:56 -0700

I hope the following news will interest you; please excuse cross-posting.

SPIE acts in support of affordable library pricing for fourth straight year

 20 July 2012

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA -- The SPIE Digital Library, whose
Proceedings of SPIE consistently ranks in the top 50 of the world's
50,000 most-used journals as analyzed by Ex Libris, has announced
another price freeze for subscribers in 2013.  At the same time, an
additional 40,000 articles from 1962-1989 are being added to the
collection, at no additional cost to subscribers.

This is the fourth consecutive year that SPIE, the international
society for optics and photonics, has reduced or frozen subscription
prices for the SPIE Digital Library. The move demonstrates the
Society's promise made in 2009 to ensure affordable access to the
largest and widely used collection of optics and photonics literature
to the greatest number of researchers, and meets its commitment to
address the long-term budgetary pressures facing libraries

SPIE has taken several voluntary and pro-active steps during the
four-year period to manage pricing:

2010: 10% reduction
2011: price freeze
2012: 5% reduction
2013: price freeze, while adding 15% additional content.

The consistent realistic approach to pricing is welcomed by SPIE
Digital Library subscriber Terry Bucknell, Electronic Resources
Manager for the University of Liverpool. "When the economic downturn
first hit, many publishers froze prices for a year," Bucknell said.
"SPIE was notable for two reasons: they actually cut their prices, and
they made it clear that this was just the first step in a long-term
plan to attract more subscribers. I'm delighted to see that in each of
the last four years SPIE has either frozen their prices or reduced
them, and this year the price freeze is accompanied by significant
additional content at no extra charge. It is great to see a publisher
working with libraries for the benefit of the whole community."

The 40,000 conference proceedings and journal articles to be added to
the SPIE Digital Library this summer will extend the digital
collection to the beginning of the society's publishing program which
began in 1962. This much-requested and difficult-to-find older content
includes pioneering and fundamental technical papers dating from 1962
through 1989.

The price freeze and the expansion of content will occur along with
the SPIE Digital Library's move to the SCM6 online platform hosted by
Silverchair, an innovative company known for its use of semantic
technologies.

In addition to its nine journals and over 8,000 conference proceedings
volumes, the SPIE Digital Library includes the SPIE eBooks collection
containing monographs, tutorial texts, and field guides published by
the SPIE Press.

To support researchers in developing or low-income countries, SPIE
participates in the eJDS program of the Abdus Salam International
Centre for Theoretical Physics, providing papers on demand to
individual scientists, and the Information Network for the
Availability of Scientific Publications PERii program, providing
access to libraries in developing nations at low or reduced rates.

SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, a
not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based
technologies. The Society serves nearly 225,000 constituents from
approximately 150 countries, offering conferences, continuing
education, books, journals, and a digital library in support of
interdisciplinary information exchange, professional growth, and
patent precedent. SPIE provided over $2.7 million in support of
education and outreach programs in 2011.

# # # #
Media contact:
Amy Nelson
Public Relations Manager, SPIE
[log in to unmask]
@SPIEtweets

This news release may be found at http://spie.org/x88697.xml

Best regards,

Mary Summerfield
Publications Business Development Manager
SPIE
Bellingham, Washington

SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics.        SPIE.org