Mr. Smith raises an excellent point, and I apologize for not replying more promptly. The positive feedback that has produced the destructive vicious cycle in journal prices could work in the opposite direction. If a publisher were to refrain from increasing prices for a journal, then that journal would probably lose very few subscriptions. If a publisher were to decrease prices, then it might experience no loss in subscriptions at all.
Regaining already lost subscriptions is a little harder. A really substantial decease in prices might result in sufficient favorable publicity that libraries that have recently discontinued would re-subscribe. We've seen this year one or two scientific societies who have done just this, and I hope their effects will be rewarded. I can personally promise that if any of the several hundred journals I have needed to cancel in the last 10 years were to decrease their prices by 25 or 50% and make this known to me, then if they were still relevant to the academic program here I would resubscribe if at all possible. Most of them are journals cancelled due to the high local cost/use ratio, not the absence of use. This applies equally to commercial and non-commercial titles. David Goodman, Princeton University Biology Library dgood...@princeton.edu 609-258-3235 On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Arthur Smith wrote: > David Goodman wrote: > > [...] > > 1/ We have continued the titles most needed, canceled appropriate titles, > > and > > avoided getting the least needed. Rational journal selection is possible. > > > > 2/ The cost of buying the same titles as subscriptions > > would be $382,000+$187,000-$30,000, which > > is $539,000, which would add 123% to our journal budget. > > > > General note: This assumes everything is electronic, and ignores > > storage, binding, and processing costs or savings. > > [...] > > This is certainly true if it was just a matter of Princeton's biology > library making the move alone to subscribe to everything. But at least > for journals published by not-for-profit organizations, if every library > subscribed to more journals there would be a very significant decrease > in price per copy. If the APS had the same subscriber base we had 40 > years ago, the cost of our journals (per subscriber) would be perhaps > 1/3 or 1/4 what it is now. This would be even more true for journals > with much smaller circulation than ours. Just something to keep in mind > in this debate - your costs would go up, but not 123% if everybody did > it. > > Arthur Smith (apsm...@aps.org) >