This is not the answer we received from the customer
          representative who visited our library.  He indicated that
          pricing was adjusted to reflect demand for a particular
          title.  In other words, lower volume titles increased more
          that higher volume titles.  Each title must support
          itself.  The implication was that prices would continue to
          increase/decrease (although at a slower rate) depending on
          the number of subscriptions to a particular title.  No
          mention was made to pricing according to the cost of paper
          copy.  Since many of us purchase microform for long term
          storage, such pricing would be unfair.  If the publishers
          are concerned about libraries purchasing microform instead
          of paper, then the microform editions could be withheld for
          a suitable period of time.  Some titles already operate like
          that.  For most of us I think the issue is the cost of
          microform versus the cost of binding.

          Marie Respass
          Georgian Court College
          Lakewood, NJ
          mrespass@georgian.edu
----------------------
Subject:   Re: UMI Price Increases (Sandy Barstow)

Hallo Sandy,
We also got a shock when we saw our UMI renewal invoice for next year.
It was nearly 50% higher than last years. Even though I received the
accompanying UMI letter, it was not clear to me what had happened. So I
called the customer service and asked them directly why there was such a
great price increase this year. They told me that they had been in
contract negotiations with many publishers during the year, and that
several publishers complained that UMI did not link their microfiche/film
prices to the price of the hard copy. UMI had priced most
microfiche/films before on demand and not on the original hard copy price.
This was changed with the new invoice.

This is my understanding. I have no solution to this problem since we
just had a 10% cut in our serials budget. I have to cancel some
microfiche titles which have not been used much. Binding is not a
solution for us either, because we are running out of room anyway.
I hope this helps.

Hella Bluhm-Stieber
Milton J. Chatton Medical Library
San Jose, Ca 95128
<hbluhmst@WAHOO.SJSU.EDU>