I'm sure I'm not the only one to have recently received an email
solicitation from Nature offering to help me "save my library's budget"
by selling me backfiles.  But am I the only one to have received it in
the wake of a renewal invoice filled with patently bizarre price
increases?

To wit: my institution's price for the EMBO Journal was $1,489 last
year.  This year the price has more than doubled, to $3,150.  Last year,
my institution subscribed to five of Nature's monthly/review titles, for
a total cost of $7,200; during the course of that year, we added one
more, and our total renewal price is now $9,500.  (That's actually down
from the original quote, which was $10,575 -- a 50% price increase for
20% more content.  When I squawked and asked for an explanation and
per-title price breakdown, I got a new quote instead.  I asked again for
a price-per-title breakdown, and am still waiting for it.)

It's one thing for a publisher to impose such bizarre price increases;
it's quite another for it to follow up the increases with a sales
solicitation that invokes the promise of budget savings!  At this point,
buying more content from Nature seems less like a way to save my
library's budget than a way to gamble with it irresponsibly.

----
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
(775) 784-6500 x273
rickand@unr.edu