I had a long discussion with our ACS rep about the hardship that ACS price
 increases would have on a very small undergraduate research programs
like ours - we have fewer than 20 students participating in it but all are
planning to transfer as Chemistry or Biology majors.  During our
discussion, I stressed to her the difficulty that the cost increase had
placed on our small community college library (5600 FTE at Oakton) and the
dramatic impact that non-renewal would have had on our students if we had
not renewed.  She said that she would take my comments to her
VP.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /><br />So, call your ACS rep and talk about specific
impact/harm to students and faculty or particular research programs that
the price increases will have at your institution.&nbsp; They have new
people at ACS who come out of the Gale/ProQuest league and don't seem to
get the role that professional society publications play in growing the
next generation of scientists.<br /><br />OUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE ACS
PRICES<br />At Oakton Community College, our cost rose 300%, down from the
900% originally quoted to our consortium, CARLI, for community
colleges.&nbsp;&nbsp; We pay the lowest tier in the ACS&nbsp;pricing
structure.<br /><br />The ACS collection has key journals used in our
undergraduate research program.&nbsp; The&nbsp;6 journals that we needed
and could have subscribed to as a package turned out to be a little higher
in price than renewing the entire collection so we renewed the
collection.&nbsp; Then we cut our budget in print and underused resources
to be able to afford it.<br /><br />It was a very painful decision.<br
/>Sherrill Weaver<br /><br /><br />On Fri, January 21, 2011 1:08 pm, Mark
Ferguson wrote: <br /><!-- begin sanitized html -->
<div>Has anybody else been struggling trying to figure out what to do
about their American Chemical Society journal subscriptions?&nbsp; We had
been subscribed to nine titles costing us around $18,000 p/yr, already
some of our costliest titles.&nbsp; Also the titles&nbsp;are
underutilized; we maintain our subscriptions to them&nbsp; at the
Chemestry department's request to fulfill requirements for accredation
(and American Chemical Society&nbsp;is the accrediting body, do I sense a
conflict of interest here?).</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
<div>Generally it seems that most of the subscription charges for our
periodicals have risen only modestly, if at all,&nbsp; for 2011, due in
part&nbsp;to low inflation and deminished library funding for
subscriptions, as library budgets are shrinking.&nbsp; This however is not
the case with our Amdrican Chemical Society subscriptions.&nbsp;The
subscription charges for these same 9 titles have&nbsp;gone up&nbsp;from
$18,000 to $23,000 per year for 2011.&nbsp; The only thing my Rep can
offer is a deal to provide more ACS journal subscriptions at a slightly
higher rate, which of course does not address the problem that we cannot
afford the subscriptions we currently have with ACS, let alone any
additional costs.</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
<div>We have canceled our subscriptions to about a third of the titles we
subscribed to in the previous year to keep costs under control.&nbsp; Has
anyone faced these same issues?&nbsp; What else have people done to
resolve this problem?&nbsp; I would be very interested to hear what other
kinds of stategies serials department directors have&nbsp;come up
with&nbsp;in the face of these rising costs.</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
<div>Mark Ferguson</div>
<div>Periodicals Librarian, College of Saint Elizabeth</div>
<!-- end sanitized html --><br /><br />-- <br />Sherrill Weaver, MA,
Sp.LIS, Ed.D <br />Professor, Library Services <br />Oakton Community
College <br />1600 East Golf Road <br />Des Plaines, IL 60016 <br />vm:
847-635-1645 <br />fax: 847-635-1887 <br />email: weaver@oakton.edu <br
/>http://www.oakton.edu/~weaver <br
/>_______________________________________________ <br />&quot;Our
political system is based on a belief in ballots, not bullets; in votes,
not violence.&quot; <br />Bob Edgar, Common Cause