From: "Brian C. Gray" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 17:52:07 -0500

Joe,

I am not sure you are understanding what is meant by bundle.

Very few titles are bought at list or as a standalone. You buy huge
packages of content if you what the majority of the titles.

It would be very hard to get the number you want since not all journal
prices, you must ask for prices. Best bet would be a journal agent to
estimate this number. But has been pointed out, prices are different
for type of organizations, size of organization, consortial
arrangements, organizational memberships, negotiations, formats,
length of time in business relationship, etc.

Brian


On Jan 25, 2015 5:44 PM, "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> 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