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