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