From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:25:01 -0600

I'm not sure why making money for your stockholders--which is what
commercial companies are supposed to do--should be called "avaricious"
behavior.  These are not non-profit, mission-driven organizations;
they are businesses out to make as much profit as the market will
bear.  Lowering prices would be rational for them to do only if they
could gain greater market share by doing so and hence enhance overall
revenues.  Librarians need to stop thinking that commercial publishers
are, like them, public servants; they do what they do to make more
money for their investors, and they succeed or fail on that basis and
that basis alone. If librarians want to change the game, they should
stop giving in every time one of the commercial publishers offers a
special discount, under the veil of an NDA, to induce continued
subscription to a Big Deal. Commercial publishers know how to play
this game well, and they seem to win out every time.

Sandy Thatcher

At 8:24 PM -0500 12/11/11, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>
> From: Amy Schuler <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 10:19:17 -0500
>
> I agree with Chuck, and avaricious is the right term to use here.  So
> the question that we keep slogging back to is:  What can we do?  As
> troubling as it is, I sincerely believe the big publishers do not take
> us - the librarian and information professional crowd - seriously.
> Why?  Because we are (in their minds) just personal shoppers on behalf
> of the real consumers (faculty, or other patrons) who ultimately
> demand the high-priced e-journals or e-books no matter how much the
> cost. Obviously this is a -bit- of an exaggeration because we all know
> faculty members who will "talk the talk" with us about the journal
> crisis, and may even discuss the issue within their professional
> societies, and may go so far as to sign on to the letters and such
> that we send to the publishers when they set their prices too high.
> But when it comes down to it, Dr. Faculty still wants the high-priced
> journal.  So again - what can we do?  There must be real action on the
> part of authors and readers.  The faculty have to say in one loud
> unified voice, "NO".  Not just the faculty at UCLA or an individual
> institution -- I mean, for instance, the entire membership of the big
> professional societies.  All members sign an agreement that they will
> not support, in terms of PUBLISHING IN or subscribing to, the
> over-priced journals of publisher X.  They further agree to request
> their libraries not to subscribe institutionally to those journals.
>
> I think that only a serious, large-scale action like this will make
> any difference.
>
> Amy Schuler
> Director of Information Services
> Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
> Millbrook, New York
>