I don't know your routine, but our staff and selectors have been looking at
whether to renew at print alone, electronic alone, or combined for over two
months--as soon as the publishers announce the changes in their pricing
policies.  This year we have seen a bumper crop from Cambridge, Oxford,
Sage, Duke/Project MUSE...the list goes on.  Since we aim to complete our
renewal cycle by October 1, we try to complete these decisions as soon as
the publishers announce them (we mostly succeed, but not always).  You
might sign up for liblicense-l or other sites that are used by publishers
announcing their changes in pricing schemes.  We do not wait for any of our
subscription agents to tell us this information, but when they do, we
appreciate it for any publishers we may have missed.

It's a catch-22 situation.  The publishers don't always announce their
renewal pricing as early as we should be making our renewal
decisions.  This year, most came all at once.  I always advise our
selectors to consider renewals in March based on what they already cannot
afford and assume that prices will increase another 8-10% over their
budgets.  This gives them ample time to check with faculty and establish
priorities--if we have to cancel, what would we cancel?  Waiting until
October is a luxury we cannot afford.

Thanks.

-Scott

>At 01:28 PM 10/11/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>>Are other libraries upset that Swets only gave us a little over a week
>>to decide whether we want to pay for online titles that were free from
>>the publisher? They gave us three options: print plus paid online,
>>online only or print only. We had to scramble to make a very hasty
>>decision in order to beat their deadline of October 8th.
>>
>>
>>
>>Aimee Algier
>>Head of Serials
>>Orradre Library
>>Santa Clara University
>>aalgier@scu.edu
>>
>
>Scott B. Wicks
>Head, Acquisitions, Bibliographic Control, and Government Documents
>Central Technical Services
>
>Cornell University Library
>110 Olin Library
>Ithaca, NY  14853-5301
>607 255-9405
>607 255-6110 (FAX)
>sbw2@cornell.edu
>http://www.library.cornell.edu/tsweb/