I respectfully disagree. I don’t see how it costs any more to
give access to a campus of 25,000 than it does to a campus of 1,000 students. What
does the number of students have to do with production cost?
And when the same journals were strictly available in print, and
anyone could walk into the library (we don’t restrict entry until midnight),
the number of students and/or faculty who used the same journal and even the
same article did not seem to make a difference in the price. We all paid the
same price then. The potential usage doesn’t escalate that exponentially just
because the same journal is online. The usage just shifts from walk-in usage
of the print to authorized log-in access to THE
SAME TYPE OF CONTENT FROM THE SAME SOURCES. The same small segment of the
campus population is going to use the same subject-specific titles that they
always did. Yes, they may use it a tad more because it is more convenient, but
the usage doesn’t grow enough to justify setting the price based on campus
population or on “potential users”. Furthermore, The value of
the information doesn’t change with the number of users. It’s the same kind of
content that used to have a fixed price when it was in print. The nature (and
thus the value) of the content hasn’t changed. The contributors get no direct
remuneration from the publishers. (The integrity of the content would be
compromised if the authors were paid, and it would definitely sully the field
if peer reviewers were paid, so that leaves whatever production cost is
actually incurred to host the content and make it available. If the cost of
production has increased, then I can understand a moderate, overall price
increase. However, I will never agree that the value of the content has any
logical connection with the “potential” or actual number
of downloads on any given campus.
Sarah Tusa, Associate Professor
Coordinator of Collection Development & Acquisitions
Mary & John Gray Library, Lamar University
PO Box 10021
Beaumont, TX 77710-0021
Ph: 409/880-8125
Fax: 409/880-8225
From: SERIALST: Serials
in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Rick
Anderson
Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 1:55 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Just a thought . . .
>
Shoot. There’s nothing “potentially infinite” about our campus
> population or even the number of “potential users.”
“Unlimited” would be a better word than “infinite,” I guess. What’s functionally
unlimited is not the number of users, but the amount of use that a given
population of users can make of a content service when no download limit is
imposed. When you sell a loaf of bread, what you’re providing in exchange
for the purchase price is a single loaf of bread. When it’s gone, it’s
gone, and if the customer wants more he has to buy another loaf. When you
sell site-based access to an online service, you’re providing a functionally
unlimited number of downloads. In that circumstance there’s nothing
irrational about pegging the access price, in some degree, to the number of
people being served. (How high or low the price itself should be is a
separate question, of course.)
Now granted, it doesn’t cost a publisher twice as much to provide two downloads
as it does to provide one download. But it does cost significantly more
to give access to a campus of 25,000 students than it does to give access to a
campus of 1,000 students.
Just to be extra clear: I’m not defending any particular publisher’s pricing
practice. Just pointing out that it makes no sense to compare selling a
loaf of bread to providing an ongoing service like an e-journal.
--
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dir. for Scholarly Resources & Collections
Marriott Library
Univ. of Utah
rick.anderson@utah.edu
(801) 721-1687