From: "Friend, Fred" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 10:02:29 +0000

It is very sad to read of such concerns from a long-standing customer
of a highly-respected publisher like APS, but I wonder if the case
illustrates a deeper problem in the design of publisher bundles. I was
on the APS Library Advisory Committee for a number of years, and had a
huge respect for the way APS handled its pricing structure. I remember
that we had a similar problem with the tiered pricing for UK libraries
at the time (many years ago) and it was resolved through open and good
communication from APS staff to their customers. I hope that the
situation Chuck Hamaker describes can be resolved in that way.

However the case does highlight the way in which bundled pricing no
longer reflects the financial or academic situation in universities
today. Maybe it never did meet academic needs absolutely but there
used to be enough money in university budgets to disguise the
inadequacy of the model. The description Chuck gives of the way the
interests of his researchers are changing is mirrored in many other
institutions, and yet journal publishers' pricing structure has not
changed to reflect that academic change. In cash-strapped times
universities are also asking for more accountability from their
librarians in respect of matching purchases to needs. The bundling
approach suits the big publishers very well because publishers license
access to a large number of journals that receive little or no use, as
the decline in usage at UNC Charlotte illustrates, and insult is added
to injury by the fact that libraries no longer own the content they
have paid for. And tiered pricing of bundles only makes the value for
money look even worse to a cost-conscious university administration
when a change in tier level makes such a big difference to the price
paid.

The handful of huge international journal publishers (you do not need
me to name them) are still making so much money from bundling and from
tiered pricing (by country rather than by institution) that only a
complete revolution in scholarly communication will force them to give
their customers better value, but publishers such as APS may be in a
better position to change. Such publishers have been reasonable in
their expectations of profit, their main concern being enough income
to publish quality content. A return to journal-by-journal
subscription would put a huge strain on library staffing, but there
may be ways of achieving economies of scale for libraries without
facing the kind of situation Chuck Hamaker describes. One alternative
occurs to me from car insurance: if I insure more than one car with
the same insurer I get a discount, so why not give libraries a
discount on the number of titles they buy, titles which they would
choose as matching their needs rather than being forced upon them
through a bundle? That could work for publishers like APS, and I am
sure other such ideas could emerge.

Fred Friend
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

________________________________________
From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:23:06 +0000

We’ve just received notification from our subscription agent that our
annual cost for APS-ALL will jump from a little less than $12,000
(including our service fee to our vendor) to almost $16,000 next year.
About a 35% increase if my approximate math is correct. It is because
we have been “reclassed “ to a tier 2 institution.

But our usage has declined over the last three years, by about 30%
from its 2011 high.  Is there any way our USAGE makes us look like a
Research Intensive University in the areas covered by APS titles? I
would suggest it does not. Like most institutions our researchers and
faculty have developed specialty interests often combined with
engineering and other inter-disciplinary interests. Our Physicists
(and I suspect we are not alone in this) here need SOME of what APS
does, not all.  They do use a respectable amount of APS articles over
the whole range of the  years provided on the website, but if APS gave
us per year access data, I suspect not even half of what we download
is current year. And we also pay for PROLA.

Our faculty  work collaboratively with others on campus in many
cutting edge areas, but APS titles don’t much match their exact needs,
particularly two of the titles C and D. Does APS not recognize that
though we’d LIKE to provide access to all their journals, in fact, our
use is such that we don’t NEED all their titles, that we were making a
 judgment based on TRUST and RESPECT, honoring APS and its importance
to the whole Physics research community as much as on use at our
institution?

In committing to their “package” we were making a statement of trust
and appreciation. This  pricing increase does not strengthen that
trust.  We are participating in SCOAP3 because of similar beliefs, not
because our campus community is involved in HEP directly. We believe
in supporting good science, cost effective and responsive and believe
in the importance of strong independent societies and associations
actively participating in the scholarly enterprise. We value APS
because of who you are and what you represent as well as your
contribution to good science.  Even when campus interests might not
align precisely with specific journals at APS we have opted to
continue. APS you have undercut our trust.

Did APS costs increase 35%? Did the CPI JUMP and I didn’t hear about
it?  Is there some phantasmagorical Elsevier level reasoning
transported via time warp from the 1980’s that justifies this for my
institution ? Has APS been reading the news about funding in state
institutions?

APS has some very serious explaining to do. We would very much like to
cancel part of the package as a protest to this cavalier behavior on
the part of a trusted and respected publisher. But they have probably
rigged their pricing so it’s MORE costly to go to individual titles
than to continue at their outrageously increased rate.

Chuck Hamaker