Libraries have been both cash cows and captive audiences for so many decades that many publishers just assume we will continue to pay regardless of what they do.  And as long as we continue to do just that what is there to make them change?  The academic research/publication system is broken, but I sure don’t know how it can be fixed or replaced as long as the powerful forces that have profited from it for so long remain in place.

 

My 2 cents’ worth.  Off to yet another committee meeting.

 

Michael

 

W. Michael Bell

Assistant Dean and Head, Materials Processing

Lupton Library

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

423-425-2670

mike-bell@utc.edu

 

From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Sally Krash
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 11:04 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] ECS journals

 

Hello all,

 

Today I received the AIP Journals 2010 price bulletin. In it I discovered that the Electrochemical Society has decided that corporate libraries need to pay more than twice as much as academic libraries. In the past, there was only one price. So, if we were to continue our subscription to the ECS Digital Library, which we are not, we would face a 115% price increase. We may have to subscribe to the Journal of the ECS, which still be a 75% price increase over what we paid for the whole library last year.

 

Does the ECS not understand that everyone in the library community is having to cut back in this economy, and a 115% price increase just isn’t going to cut it?

 

Sally Krash

Library Group Leader

Southwest Research Institute

210.522.3097

skrash@swri.org