ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO 246 -- March 14, 2000 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS 246.1 JOINT VENTURE OF SWETS BLACKWELL NOW COMPLETE, Press release 246.2 APS INTRODUCES MULTI-TIERED PRICING FOR JOURNALS, Press release246.1 JOINT VENTURE OF SWETS BLACKWELL NOW COMPLETE
Lisse, The Netherlands. The boards of Blackwell Limited and Swets & Zeitlinger are delighted to announce that the merger between Blackwell's Information Services and Swets Subscription Service has now been completed.
This follows the signing of the merger agreement November 30, 1999, to create a joint venture combining the two companies. After due diligence and tax and regulatory processes, the recent approval of the Office of Fair Trade in the United Kingdom has made completion possible.
This merger is between the subscription agency and information service divisions of Blackwell Limited and Swets & Zeitlinger. The new company with a head office based in The Netherlands is called Swets Blackwell. Swets & Zeitlinger and Blackwell Limited are both shareholders in the new company, with Swets being the majority shareholder.
Blackwell Ltd retains its library bookselling division, Blackwell's Book Services, and its UK retail bookselling operation, Blackwell Retail Ltd, outside the joint venture while Swets & Zeitlinger retains its publishing, document services, psychological tests and publishers' services divisions as separate entities.
Work is well underway on the structure of the new company; the integration of personnel, offices and systems; and the rationalisation of the company's services and products. The overall integration of all systems and offices will be completed by 2001 with the majority of the systems being fully integrated during 2000.
Swets Blackwell is the leading global subscription agent and information services company with a turnover in excess of one billion US Dollars. Its offices are in 19 countries with a total staff of over 1000. The company provides a complete range of services to libraries, scholars and publishers in the area of print and electronic journal provision and management. The unique services that both Swets and Blackwell's have developed in recent years to provide access to full text electronic journals, databases and contents information are being integrated and will be re- launched later this year.
For further information please contact:
Bart de Gans, Communications Manager Swets & Zeitlinger BV,
tel +31 252 435388,
email bdegans@swets.nl
The American Physical Society (APS), publisher of The Physical
Review A-E, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review Special Topics
- Accelerators and Beams, Physical Review Online Archives (PROLA)
and Reviews of Modern Physics, is implementing a new, multi-tiered
pricing structure. The APS publishes its journals as a not-for-
profit responsibility of the society and the new pricing structure
does not change that policy. However, recent trends in subscriber
access have shifted the burden of support for publication costs
increasingly away from larger, research oriented, institutions onto
smaller schools. These trends include the elimination of page
charges for support of journal costs and the cancellation of
multiple subscriptions by large institutions. The elimination of
page charges (largely paid by research-oriented institutions)
resulted directly from competitive pressures from commercial
physics journals. The cancellation of multiple subscriptions has
been made practical by the fact that all of the APS journals are
available electronically, including the Online Archive (PROLA),
which currently extends back to 1985.
PRICING CATEGORIES FOR INSTITUTIONS
In an effort to redress these changes in the sources of support for
publishing the physics literature, and to return the balance of
support for publication of physics research literature back towards
its historic pattern, the APS has decided to provide the journals
to non-research oriented institutions at a lower price than that
charged to research intensive institutions. There will initially be
three categories for pricing, Carnegie classification Research
institutions, Carnegie classification Doctoral institutions, and
other institutions. The 1994 Carnegie classifications
(http://www.carnegiefoundation.org) will be used for 2001 pricing.
The Carnegie classifications are scheduled to be updated later in
2000 and the updated classifications will be used for 2002 pricing.
ONLINE-ONLY ACCESS OPTIONS
In 2001 the APS journals will be available for the first time in an
online-only option. The base price for the online journal, which is
the price for all domestic academic institutions below the Carnegie
Research or Doctoral classifications, will be 13% below the 2000
journal price. For Doctoral institutions the price will be 6% below
the 2000 price and for Research Universities the 2001 price will be
2% above the 2000 price. For those institutions which desire a
physical product to accompany their online-access subscriptions,
CD-ROMs will be available at $50 per disc (typically Physical
Review B, Physical Review E and Physical Review Letters require two
discs per year, while the other journals require one per year). The
traditional option of print-plus-online will also be available.
PRICING FOR TRADITIONAL SUBSCRIPTIONS
For those institutions which choose to continue their print-plus-
online subscriptions, the price increases for 2001 versus 2000 will
be 2% for base-price institutions, 11% for the Doctoral I/II
institutions and 20% for Research I/II institutions. There will be
no separately priced print-only subscriptions.
With this new pricing, approximately two thirds of the subscribing
institutions will see a 13% decrease (online only) or a 2% price
increase (online plus print) in 2001. This is made possible by the
larger price increase for the remaining institutions. The total
revenue from subscriptions will be equivalent to an across-the-
board price increase of approximately 8%. The prices reflect the
combination of continued cancellations, especially of multiple
subscriptions in research laboratories, and inflationary increases
of approximately 4%. The multi-tiered pricing represents a
redistribution of charges between institutions, not any increase in
revenue beyond the historic pattern of annual increases. It is also
of interest to note that the money provided by the charges above
the base price is of the same order as the cost of maintaining
electronic access to the journals. The electronic access is most
heavily used by the research institutions.
CLASSIFICATION OF FOREIGN INSTITUTIONS
There are no convenient classifications for foreign institutions.
Therefore, foreign institutions will be placed into equivalent
categories with domestic institutions, and charged accordingly,
based on a comparison of their online usage with the median value
of usage by the domestic Carnegie categories. A subscriber whose
online usage exceeds that of the median of the Carnegie Research
institutions will be placed in the top category. Those with usage
between the medians of the doctoral and the research institutions
will be placed in the middle category, and all others placed in the
base category. It should be emphasized that the multi-tiered
pricing is not an attempt to introduce usage based pricing. Rather,
it is a move to put the larger burden for distribution of research
information onto the research institutions. Online usage is only
used for foreign institutions in an effort to obtain an objective
identification of research intensive subscribers.
PROLA ONLINE
It is recognized that the large price increases for the research
organizations provides a real burden on tight library budgets. In
order to provide additional options to subscribers two additional
features have been added. The first is the option of online-only
access to the journal (no print copy). As discussed above, this
option provides a price reduction in 2001 for all subscribers below
the Carnegie Research level. For the Research level institution it
gives a 2% price increase in 2001. Foreign subscribers, paying air-
freight costs, would see an even greater savings. The APS feels
this will be an especially attractive option because of the
availability of the Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA). PROLA
currently contains all of the Physical Review from 1985 through
1996 (1997, 1998 and 1999 files are available on the current online
journal platforms). By the end of 2000 the archive will contain
Physical Review back to 1975, Physical Review Letters back to its
beginning in 1959 and the Reviews of Modern Physics back to its
beginning in 1928. Current plans call for all of the APS
publications back to 1893 being in the archive by the end of 2001.
PROLA will be continually updated to include all articles published
more than three years before the current year. The more recent
material will be on the current journal platforms. Negotiations are
underway to maintain a fully current version of PROLA (including
current issues) on several servers at institutional libraries to
create a true archive. We expect to have the first mirror site
operational this year. The maintenance of the PROLA in a current
and readily accessible form is a responsibility which the APS has
assumed for the community. Access to PROLA is included in the price
for the APS packages (PRALL and APSALL) and is available at a
modest cost for subscribers of individual journals. The cost for
PROLA covers maintenance of the archive and access to PROLA
provides perpetual access to subscriber material.
PRICING FOR MULTIPLE-COPY ORDERS
A second feature, offered to academic research or doctoral
institutions, is the option of ordering multiple copies of the
print version at the base price. The first copy of each journal
will be charged the full price in any order, but additional copies
included in the same order will be billed at the base price.
Because of the heavy burden of tracking subscriptions, separate
orders for research or doctoral institutions will be charged the
full price for the institution. However, if units within an
institution bundle their requisitions into a single order, only the
first copy for each specific journal will be charged at the above-
base rate. This discount is available only to academic
institutions.
SUMMARY
The new pricing model of the APS is an attempt to adjust to changes
in the scholarly publishing world. The goal is to fulfill the APS
mission of promoting the Advancement and Diffusion of the Knowledge
of Physics while maintaining a sense of fairness in distributing
the costs of that mission. The model was prepared after thorough
discussions with member committees of the APS and librarians
advising the Society. We recognize that, like any change, it has to
be a continuing process and we are anxious to obtain as wide a
discussion of the pricing as possible.
The APS strives to find the least expensive way of publishing the
physics literature consistent with the highest standards of peer
review publications. We cannot predict what the future will bring
in terms of ultimate products and costs. It is inevitable that
changes will occur in both the nature of the journals, as cost-
cutting is implemented, and in the way costs are distributed among
the diverse group of subscribers. We anticipate continued,
spirited, discussions amongst the Society membership, the librarian
community and other users as the changes evolve.
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246.2 APS INTRODUCES MULTI-TIERED PRICING FOR JOURNALS
Press Release received March 8, 2000
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Statements of fact and opinion appearing in the Newsletter on
Serials Pricing Issues are made on the responsibility of the
authors alone, and do not imply the endorsement of the editor, the
editorial board, or the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill.
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The Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues (ISSN: 1046-3410) is
published by the editor through Academic Technology and Networks at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as news is
available. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, Email: marcia_tuttle@unc.edu;
Telephone: 919 929-3513. Editorial Board: Keith Courtney (Taylor
and Francis), Fred Friend (University College London), Birdie
MacLennan (University of Vermont), Michael Markwith (Swets
Subscription Services), James Mouw (University of Chicago), Heather
Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division), David Stern (Yale
University), and Scott Wicks (Cornell University).
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