From: "Bosch, Stephen J - (boschs)" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:41:58 +0000 This discussion does raise some good points about serials pricing and the fact that bundles have had an impact on pricing models. But this does not mean that it is impossible to use existing data to develop views of current serials pricing data that can paint an accurate picture of the scholarly serials market place. ALA ALCTS does continue to publish the serials price index. You can find the most current versions in the Library and Book Trade Almanac published by Information Today - the last volume came out last June. Earlier versions of the data can be found on the ALCTS web site http://www.ala.org/alcts/resources/collect/serials/spi One table in that article looks at the retail price of serials as supplied by publishers (there is pricing for print or online depending on what's available from the publishers) for over 10,400 titles commonly used in academic libraries. The average price of those journals was a little over $1,300 per title. The overall value for that set of titles was slightly over $14,000,000. Also Library Journal publishes an annual article on serials pricing. http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/04/publishing/steps-down-the-evolutionary-road-periodicals-price-survey-2014/#_ There are several tables that look at average prices in several different scenarios. The Average price of titles indexed in the Web of Knowledge is $1,458 per title in 2014. Table 3 looks at online pricing for titles in the Web of Knowledge. Yes, the shift to online and bundles has made the job of following serials prices more difficult but it is not impossible. Disclaimer: I am an author of both the studies mentioned above. Stephen Bosch Materials Budget, Procurement, and Licensing Librarian University of Arizona Library Tucson, AZ 85721-0055 [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Sally Morris <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:01:48 +0000 The difficulty of reaching a definitive answer is, presumably, exactly why the ALA stopped maintaining its index of journal prices Sally Sally Morris Email: [log in to unmask]