From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2013 10:42:48 +0100

Deborah wrote: "I believe two factors impacted greatly increased use:
the deployment of Summon as our discovery layer the year before, and
the adoption of tablets, which allow our users to download and store a
nearly limitless number of articles."

One of the many ironies of the scholarly communications market is the
fact that libraries are penalised for putting in place effective
discoverymmechanisms.  Our institutions invest considerable time and
money making sure that researchers and students can find the material
that we pay for.  Then (some) publishers turn to us and say 'Ah, your
usage is increasing, clearly it's time for us to put up the price'.  A
library that has effectively enabled discovery sees greater use and
reduced costs per download, and so is considered by (some) publishers
to be 'underpaying' compared to other libraries that have not enabled
discovery - so leading to an increase in the total price paid.

David



On 2 Aug 2013, at 01:23, LIBLICENSE wrote:

From: Deborah Lenares <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2013 08:11:22 -0400

I agree that each institution should assess the cost per use of their
journal subscriptions including Big Deals to determine if PPV is a
good option for them.  However in some cases the Big Deal is actually
quite a good deal.

We did PPV with a major publisher for nearly four years.  It was an
excellent approach to expand access.  In 2012, after three years of
slowly rising use, our use exploded in the spring semester.  We saw
similar use patterns with other publishers, though not all.  I believe
two factors impacted greatly increased use: the deployment of Summon
as our discovery layer the year before, and the adoption of tablets,
which allow our users to download and store a nearly limitless number
of articles.

We decided not to fund additional PPV for the rest of the year, and
provided articles through ILL only.  We negotiated a Big Deal with
this publisher for 2013 access, which we are very satisfied with.

So there's my cautionary tale about PPV.

But back to the original question: APS journals.  We dropped the
APS-All package years ago because the cost per use did not make sense
for our institution.  Over the past five years, which has included
much heated discussion with the physics faculty, we've reduced our APS
subscription to only 2 or 3 because of very high cost and fairly low
use.  I have tried to discuss the situation with APS to no avail.

I believe the root of this problem, with APS and ACS (although we find
ACS to be a good value), is that societies are funding activities
through journal subscriptions.  Are societies seeing decreased
membership, thus increasing the need for revenue from subscriptions?
This is something that librarians and society publishers should be
discussing.

Best,
Deborah Lenares

Manager Acquisitions and Resource Sharing
Science Collection Management Librarian
Clapp Library - Wellesley College
106 Central Street, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481
781-283-3596        [log in to unmask]