What will prove or disprove the case is not your study, or anyone's, but the market. If people value the features, they will pay for them. And it is really that simple, assuming there are no artificial constraints, such as excessively rigid tenure requirements and other administrative interference.
The possible responses to competition from less expensive suppliers are to increase value, lower costs and prices, accept a much smaller part of the market, or make use of anti-competitive measures. In this case, the alternative suppliers are intrinsically so much less expensive, that it seems doubtful whether you can increase value or lower costs enough to compete, however much I wish you could. But my opinion, or other peoples' opinions, regardless of how carefully collected, decide nothing. What they do is decisive. If my patrons want expensive publications, rather than less expensive provision of the same material, they will continue to use the many we have. I will determine the use by my routine measurements, and those who supply the funds will, as in the past, allocate the money to buy them. If the patrons cease to want them, they will stop using them. I will similarly determine the lack of use, and, being responsible within my sphere for not wasting my institution's funds, I will not request the money to buy them. We all know that ongoing measurements already show an almost total nonuse of conventional publications, print or electronic, in one of the science subject areas. Dr. David Goodman Research Librarian and Biological Sciences Bibliographer Princeton University Library dgood...@princeton.edu 609-258-7785
