[NHC List] Alarming Jrnl Pricing trends: Small societies: ASLO & Wildlife Society publications

[Johnson, Steve]

Ruth and others in this conversation,

The changes at the Wildlife Society changes took me quite by surprise,
since they came after I had submitted my 2006 renewals to these titles
(via Ebsco). The Bulletin and Journal of Wildlife Management were still
combined in my October billing statement. Without claim to psychic
power, I see an additional invoice in my future...

That said, the sticker shock for the Wildlife Society was much less than
with Journal of Zoology. With Journal of Zoology's move from Cambridge
University Press to Blackwell, the price for online only increased from
$980 (2005) to $1300 (2006). The Zoological Society of London may derive
some benefit from that price increase, but I doubt that readers will see
more pages or other tangible improvements. The change in publisher will
cost us time to maintain an additional url in the catalog, web page, and
remote authentication server. 

I do not find it surprising that organizations, such as Wildlife
Society, now view the electronic product as the basic product, and
charge extra for the print, rather than vice versa. The core
constituency of society members, especially younger members, typically
want their journals in electronic format. Also, the marginal costs of
printing and mailing and warehousing printed copies are much more
immediate and obvious than the future costs of supporting electronic
access to a journal's electronic back files. 

My sense is that society publishers see BioOne as a means of obtaining
some income and other benefits by extending readership to groups which
would not subscribe directly, rather than as a mean of reaching their
primary constituencies.  Although societies are logically concerned
about loosing regular subscribers because they are making content
available through BioOne, I think publishers have found that they
benefit from BioOne in other ways than royalty payments (technical
assistance in getting online and rationalizing their business processes,
for the most part).  

When trying to understand seemingly inexplicable behavior of publishers,
I try to think as if I were a publisher.  For example, why would any
sane publisher give away content through free websites such as
FindArticles? The short answer is that publishers are not giving the
content away; an advertiser is paying for the reader's access.  A longer
answer might be that no serious subscriber, with real money to spend,
will bet the farm on content which can be withdrawn from a website
without notice. And, the free sites such as FindArticles, are
increasingly selling some content, by the slice or by the subscription.
Publishers are looking for payment, and not necessarily from the person
who downloads an article or shelves a journal.

When thinking about the bundling of online content, I am most concerned
about policies such as those of Elsevier.  Unless policies have changed
since I last checked, one cannot obtain persistent access--what other
publishers called premium access-to online content of any Elsevier
journal unless one makes a "big deal" to buy premium access to all
Elsevier journals to which one has subscribed in recent years. Although
I have not renewed several Elsevier titles in recent years, the number
of Elsevier titles on my list stays about constant, since Elsevier has
recently acquired journals to which I already subscribe. Journal for
Nature Conservation and der Zoologische Garten come to mind immediately.
(It is more than five years since Saunders, the veterinary publisher,
became an Elsevier company.)

I held off on responding to Ruth's message, because I was unable to
articulate a conclusion. Four weeks after Ruth's message, journals have
been on my mind so much that I can't hold off comment, even if
inconclusively. I will close by noting that the new journals from the
Wildlife Society will still have page charges ($90/page for up to 8
pages, member rate). Blackwell is now offering to make article available
on an "Online Open" basis upon payment of a one time charge of US$2500.
Springer offers a version of open access under the "Open Choice" name
for an author payment of $US3000. Where does this leave libraries? WCS
staff publish in journals from each of the publishers mentioned in this
note, including Journal of Wildlife Management.

The afternoon mail brought a renewal notice from Chelonian Conservation
& Biology, which will now be published in 2006 by....Alliance
Communications Group, the publishing arm of Allen Press. Subscriptions
will be offered in the form of print & online combined ($200 combined)
or online only ($175). Previous subscriptions, print only, cost
$100/year. I suspect it will be several months down the road before we
learn if this title will also appear as part of BioOne.

Steve
Steve Johnson
Manager, Bronx Zoo Library
Wildlife Conservation Society
sjohnson at wcs.org
718 220-6719 voice
718 220-7114 fax





-----Original Message-----
From: nhc-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu On Behalf Of Ruth Gustafson
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 8:59 PM
To: ucbioagsel at ucdavis.edu; Natural History Caucus SLA;
bsdnet-l at lists.ncsu.edu; IAMSLIC discussion list
Subject: [NHC List] Alarming Jrnl Pricing trends: Small societies: ASLO
& Wildlife Society publications