Hi,

Last year the Psychological Science combo was acquired by Sage and went up 30%. I was told that because Psychological Science is one of the top-rated journals in Psychology, it should be priced comparably to hard science journals. The price increase was blamed on the publishing society.  And looking back at the print prices since 2003, the increases were already pretty bad.

Now, many of the hard science journals are publishing a much greater quantity of articles, with more complicated editing needs, hence they *should* cost more than social science type publications.  (Someone with a better understanding of journal editing and publishing can correct me if I'm wrong).  Back in the day of print-only, you had chemistry and physics journals whose print editions were like old-style massive phone books for every issue, versus Psychological Science and its hangers-on barely constituting a phone book for one year. So I think the actual output should count for something in the pricing, but maybe that's just me coming from a bindery perspective again.

I am also told that there is a lot of competition for high-ranking society journals and I guess the commercial publisher who promises the most money and perks wins the game.  Which then contributes to higher prices.

Another big problem is the decline of individual memberships to societies.  I've heard anecdotally that professors are not paying for memberships as much as they used to.  The societies want to survive; their solution is to stick it to the academic libraries to make up the shortfall.

Meanwhile, the vendor sales reps are constantly trying to sell us more stuff, and we throw up our hands and say "we have no extra money because the journal packages are going up 5-9% a year." So they're not really helping themselves, at least in terms of selling new products. We're just jogging in place with the journal packages and databases at this point, keeping up with no room for additions.

--

Diane Westerfield, Electronic Resources & Serials Librarian
Tutt Library, Colorado College
diane.westerfield@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6661
(719) 389-6082 (fax)

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Millhorn
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 9:54 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] outrage of the day--Sage and the American Educational Research Journal

Greetings,

Our serials agent--Harrassowitz--performs a valuable service in informing us whenever a journal's inflation rate exceeds 15%.  This morning I was a astonished to learn that more than a dozen Sage journals--and these are fundamental titles--exceeded the 15% rate and a couple were in excess of 50%.  However, the topper was the American Educational Research Journal whose inflation rate weighed in an at more than 100% ($387 to $806.)  Moreover, before Sage took over the title in 2006 it was priced at $147.

I called Sheenagh McCarthy from Sage marketing to voice or displeasure and ask what the hell is going on.  She explained--very nicely--that she understood the gravity of the situation and comprehended that such severe inflation rates placed an enormous burden on libraries.  On the other hand, Sheenagh indicated that Sage had conducted a "marketing study" that concluded that a number of Sage journals were under priced for their field.  And hence the major price increase.  I asked whether these journals were losing money previously, and she indicated no.  In addition, Sheenagh opined that it was the respective Associations that were demanding the severe price hikes.  All I can say is that if a number of prominent publishers follow in the footsteps of Sage then we are in for a very rough ride.

Best,

Jim Millhorn
Acquisitions & Electronic Resources
Northern Illinois University Libraries
DeKalb, IL 60115
ph: (815)753-1054
fax: (815)753-9870
email: millhorn@niu.edu

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