Subject: Re: SPARC and ACS (other views)
David Goodman (dgoodman@Princeton.EDU)
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:47:19 -0400
Message-Id: <37DEC24F.7D85713A@princeton.edu> Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:47:19 -0400 From: David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU> To: arl-ejournal@arl.org Subject: Re: SPARC and ACS (other views) References: <3.0.32.19990830171136.006af1e0@pop3.NL.net> <19990906180604.E29173@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk> <37D6CE7B.F7553090@princeton.edu>
I have received a number of comments on and off the list about my note.
I apparently did not make sufficiently clear that there is another
option in ACS ejournal pricing, besides the individual rates that I
commented on:
>
> "Subscription Option B, Web Editions with all current subscriptions"
> allows institutions agreeing to retain their current print subscription
> to obtain an organization-wide Web edition license. Beginning in 2000,
> the fee for this license is only an additional 15% (reduced from 25%
> in 1999) of the rates for ACS print journals in a library's collection
> that are selected to be received as Web editions, Larger organizations
> can include multiple locations...
In other words, if you retain all your print, you can add ejournal
versions at a reasonable price. Many academic institutions, including
Princeton, participate in this. The cut in rate from 25% for 15%
means, I am told, that even with the increase in journal prices we
will be spending less for the ACS titles than last year.
This is certainly good, but I don't consider this perfect, since for
some titles a library might eventually prefer to get only electronic.
I also dislike in principle as anti competitive any plan that
guarantees a publisher's revenue--but it certainly makes more sense
for a typical institution to do this for ACS than for any commercial
publisher I can think of.
Richard K. Johnson <rick@arl.org> of ARL made the following comment,
which I quote:
>
> SPARC exists first and foremost to spur competition in the
> marketplace in order to drive down prices and encourage alternatives.
> The most important point about our relationship with ACS is that the
> market now has an alternative to Tetrahedron Letters that is more
> than $6000 less expensive and is of outstanding quality. Taking all
> factors into consideration, ACS is an effective partner, able to
> deliver value and quality, ready to talk about their policies,
> engaged in trying to evolve with fast-changing and segmented market
> needs. And they bring to our partnership well deserved prestige
> among chemists that ensures authors and readers will embrace the
> journals that result from our efforts.
Unless this publication is sufficiently successful to drive out
Tetrahedron Letters, several have mentioned that this means that
chemistry research libraries will be paying the $2400 for Organic
Letters as well as the $8850 for the commercial title. I note,
though, that the increase in the Elsevier title from 1999 to 2000
was only 3%, while the average increase for that publisher was 7.5%.
David Goodman
<dgoodman@princeton.edu>
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