Journal tiered pricing explorations
From: "Stern, David" <David_Stern_at_brown.edu>
Dear Collection Development leaders,
Due to the recent budget crisis, a number of libraries have been
looking at new approaches to collection development. Some
efforts involve cooperative collection development for paper and
online resources. Other efforts focus on new pricing models for
paper and online materials.
Brown University (and other libraries) have begun conversations
with a number of journal publishers about a “tiered subscription
and pay-per-view” pricing model. The intention is to maximize
shrinking funds by balancing a predictable budget for our most
used resources with some amount of flexibility to support our
lesser used materials – which may have an unknown on-demand
costs. This model would customize expenses to actual local use.
Our initial model would have three elements:
1. Full price subscriptions for heavily used journals,
2. Reduced price subscriptions for a set of lesser-used
titles, and
3. Pay-per-view “seamless” credit account access for the
least used materials
The initial calculation would be based upon historic usage
data, and the movement of titles between these categories would
be reviewed on an annual basis in order to address changing
research interests and user behaviors. Some amount of protection
could be built into the model to avoid disastrous one-time
anomalies while encouraging as much predictable subscription
access as possible.
We are now reviewing our use data and proposing such alternative
models with a few journal publishers and aggregators. I
encourage others who have an interest in this type of pricing
model to talk with journal publishers about a similar approach.
Our hope is to reduce costs and tailor our profile based upon
actual use … while offering a predictable revenue stream for our
vendors and seamless access for our users. (Of course this
approach leaves out the disruptive influences of unbundled
article delivery and Open Access schema.)
We will continue to provide details as we develop a more mature
proposal after working with a variety of journal publishers. I
would appreciate hearing of any other libraries currently working
on this approach or interested in exploring it in greater detail.
An early version of this idea was described starting on page 314
within the article
"Pricing Models: Past, Present, and Future?"
Serials Librarian 36 (1/2): 301-319 (1999).
http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/932486_751308825_904273471.pdf
I look forward to constructive criticism of this approach,
David
David Stern
Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources
Brown University
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
10 Prospect Street / Box A
Providence, RI 02912
phone: (401) 863-7785
fax: (401) 863-3384
email: David_Stern_at_brown.edu
Received on Wed Feb 11 2009 - 12:52:39 EST