ON 17 Nov 2004 Sandhya D. Srivastava <LIBRSDS@MAIL1.HOFSTRA.EDU> wrote:

> I am not trying to lump them all together -- most of the titles this
> year fall under the sciences, and the applied and behavioral social
> sciences.  THere are some that also do not fall under these headings
> such as history and sports & exercise.  I understand that we do not want
> to lump them together.  At the same time, I would like to understand how
> commercial (big and small), society, university presses come up with
> their pricing.  At some point these price increases will have to be made
> public a lot sooner than two months before you pay your annual renewal.
> Budgets cannot be increased in the year that the shortfall occurs.  They
> can only be increased if you can account for the increased cost the year
> before.  Publishers will have to also learn how we work if they want to
> get their monies worth from us.

        Some questions about the calculus of publishers'
        prices may be answered in two articles I wrote
        for SERIALS LIBRARIAN:

        - Forecasting changes in periodicals prices.  Serials
        Librarian. 12:4 33-43. 1992.
        Abstract: Comparing the Periodical Price Index with
        Consumers Price Index over a dozen years, shows that
        it takes publishers up to two years to respond to
        unpredicted changes in economic events such as
        inflation (or currency exchange). The lag makes rises
        in publishers' prices predictable. An average
        difference of five percent excess increase in PPI
        over CPI in the physics and chemistry category, but
        not in the general category, can be explained by the
        exponential increase of papers, doubling every 15
        years, in science journals.  The trend of
        cancellations outnumbering new subscriptions
        contributes to higher prices of academic research
        journals as publishers must recover fixed costs from
        fewer sales.

        - Forecasting prices of foreign science journals.
        In Serials Librarian. 23:1/2 129-134. 1992.
        Abstract: Providing extra services probably
        results in higher prices.

        Best wishes,

Albert Henderson
Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000
Contributor HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. AN ENCYCLOPEDIA (ABC-CLIO 2002)
<70244.1532@compuserve.com>