How Much Do Libraries Pay for Journal Access?

As publishing has moved from paper to electronic access, libraries have carried the burden of paying for this access. Librarians have long complained about the high costs, but exact numbers were difficult to find due to widespread confidentiality agreements that publishers force libraries to sign. A recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Evaluating big deal journal bundles, sheds light on the actual costs. A group of economics researchers used Freedom of Information Act laws to collect subscription information, asking 55 university libraries and 12 library consortia for copies of their contracts with publishers. The authors obtained 360 contracts revealing the prices paid for access to academic journals. They also compared how much libraries paid for bundled subscriptions by for-profits and nonprofit publishers. Their data revealed that many libraries paid millions of dollars for journal access. In particular, they found that: For-profit publishers, such as Elsevier and Taylor & Francis, charged markedly higher rates than nonprofit publishers. Value calculations, which measured the cost-per-citation for each journal, showed that the “price per citation” was also significantly higher for commercial publishers than for nonprofit publishers. Subscription prices differed widely between institutions, with little justification seeming to drive these differences, according to the study authors. Researchers can now see how much institutions ...
Source: What's New on JEFFLINE - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: All News Clinicians Researchers Students Teaching Faculty Source Type: news