Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 23:46:34 -0500 (EST)
From: Albert Henderson <70244.1532@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject: Personal/Institutional Prices

Orion Pozo <orion_pozo@LIBRARY.LIB.NCSU.EDU> wrote:

> We have been asked to come up with some data about the price differences
> between personal subscriptions and the institutional prices we pay as a
> library.  Does anyone know of any work done in this area?  Specifically, we
> would be interested in what is the average (or mean) price difference, what
> percent of journals have differential pricing, what is the largest price
> difference, and what is the impact of these price differences on a college
> library's budget.

Twenty years ago the National Science Foundation had a division of scientific
information that did original research in the area. A good summary can be found
in STATISTICAL INDICATORS OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION 1960-1980
issued in May 1977 by NTIS under PB-278-279 or, with further refinements,  in
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS IN THE UNITED STATES, by Donald W. King et al., published by
Dowden Hutchenson & Ross in 1981 (most recently distributed by VNR I believe.)

Some of the average prices demonstrated by this data are outdated, but the
principles have not changed very much. Publishers set prices to maximize
financial performance, whether this means profits or surplus income in the
terminology of nonprofit publishers. Subscription cancellations have forced
prices more sharply upward than would be the case if cost variables were
confined to increased numbers of pages, foreign currency values, and inflation.
I think that libraries' budgets have had a greater impact on pricing than the
reverse.

One of the more important findings reported by King was that the library
procurement and processing cost was a very small part of the total. The largest
cost of published research is incurred by readers. The costs have shifted, of
course, with remote access taking a larger share of both library and of reader
expenditures.

There is no single rule or rationale guiding the differential between member and
nonmember prices. One publisher may use an elaborate economic formula based on
actual costs while another's differential is strictly based on politics.

As long as universities fail to support their libraries as they do their
research programs, supply and demand will be out of balance and prices will
continue to surge upward just as a constriction creates a fountain. Send me your
mailing address and I'll happily mail you some graphics.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
70244.1532@compuserve.com