From: Sally Morris <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:01:48 +0000

The difficulty of reaching a definitive answer is, presumably, exactly why
the ALA stopped maintaining its index of journal prices

Sally

Sally Morris
Email:  [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 12:39:15 -0500

I am responding here to Jan's note, but I have also received a number of
responses to my question offline from people who don't wish to have their
institutional affiliation disclosed.

Yes, it's negotiable, as Jan says.  So the question could better be put this
way:  What is the retail price for all the subscription journals (that are
available in electronic form), and how much would a customer actually have
to pay for them?

This brings us to the question of the category of customer.  Would an
academic library pay more or less than an individual, than a company?
Would there be a distinction between a large company and a raw start-up?

Then there is the matter of the number of journals.  I thought (silly
me!) that the number was around 25,000, a figure I picked up form reading
Stevan Harnad's many posts.  But one person commented that the number is
perhaps twice that.  How to resolve this?  How many scholarly journals are
there that are peer-reviewed and sold in digital form?

A related question is domain.  I was looking for the figure for all
disciplines, but one comment I received addressed STM specifically.
How many HSS journals are there, how many in STM?

And all of this is for current issues.  The backfiles still loom over this
discussion.

I have gotten a couple estimates for the total cost, but I am going to
withhold them for a bit in order not to influence anyone else who wants to
take a crack at this.  And I hope more people do.

Does it not seem odd that these figures are not readily available somewhere?

Now, as for Jan's comment that a journal is a bundle, well, that would get
us onto a long and perhaps unproductive path.  My view is that a journal is
a bundle is the same sense that a house is.  In my house there are TVs,
tables, chairs, iPhones, sinks, and everything else you would expect.  All
of this was purchased "off the shelf," but still somehow it is *our* house;
it feels like ours, and people who visit feel that way, too.  I know
personality and subjectivity are the abominations of the modern world, but I
am a cheerful troglodyte and have remarked upon the personality of a
publisher:

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/06/03/the-personality-of-a-publisher
/

Switching metaphors, let's consider the original version of the classic
science fiction film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."  How does the hero
know whether the woman the he is in love with is human or an alien? He
kisses her, and all is revealed.  Is a journal merely a bundle?  Kiss and
tell.

Joe Esposito


On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 4:56 AM, Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Joe, the answer is "negotiable". Many of the published list prices of
> journals are at 'discouragement levels', meaning that taking out
> individual subscriptions is not liked by most publishers. Bundles are
> preferred. (By the way, isn't a journal a 'bundle' in itself? Of
> articles, some of which may be relevant, cited, popular and such, some
> of which totally ignored?)
>
> Basing the total cost on published list prices will give an upper limit of
what the cost could be. It is likely to be far, far higher than the real
cost, should someone actually wish to buy all the peer reviewed journals
that exist and has the good sense to negotiate the price.
>
> Jan Velterop