1 / 19

The Scholarly Publishing Scene and ASPI

The Scholarly Publishing Scene and ASPI. David C Prosser Executive Director RLUK. Who we are. Membership organisation of 32 libraries 27 university libraries 3 national libraries Wellcome and V&A Vision: The UK should have the best research library support in the world.

aliya
Download Presentation

The Scholarly Publishing Scene and ASPI

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Scholarly Publishing Scene and ASPI • David C Prosser • Executive Director • RLUK

  2. Who we are • Membership organisation of 32 libraries • 27 university libraries • 3 national libraries • Wellcome and V&A • Vision: • The UK should have the best research library support in the world

  3. Universal Access? • The past decade has seen a massive growth in online access: • Big deals - bringing access to previously unsubscribed titles • Archives - free and purchased through back-file deals • But, even with access to ‘everything’, a third of researchers have access problems ‘very’ or ‘quite’ often (PEER Behavioural Research - http://www.peerproject.eu/fileadmin/media/reports/PEER_D4_final_report_29SEPT11.pdf)

  4. Everybody’s Hurting • Fall in value of Sterling has impacted UK Libraries • Library purchasing power reduced by 16% in 2008-2009, leaving shortfall of up to £400,000 for some RLUK members • Assessment for THE in 2009 highlighted series of financial hurdles that universities must clear, including: • cuts to government funding • the growing burden of debt repayments • pension and pay commitments • potential drop in international and domestic student numbers • A “typical” institution’s surplus is set to drop from £5 million in 2009 to zero by 2012

  5. Everybody’s Hurting • HEFCE budget is being cut (sometimes in the middle of the financial year - during 2010/11 they lost £449 million from the announced budget for the 2010/11 financial year) • Even optimistic estimates of income from students shows teaching income flat over the next few years (after an initial dip). • STEM research funding flat - real-term cuts • There are no short-term rays of hope for the sector • Implications will be felt in the library for years to come

  6. Everybody’s Hurting • Not just the UK: • ARL survey of members in 2009 showed 40% had already experienced cuts • 82% expected cuts for 2009-2010 • 50% expected reductions of 5-10%, but • 5% expected budget cuts of greater than 10% • http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/ala09lowry.pdf

  7. ... or Almost Everybody! Reed Elsevier 2011 Half-Year Interim Results • For Elsevier (Science & Technology and Health Sciences combined) relative to 2009: • Revenue: +2% • Profits: +5% • Margin 35.6% - up from 33.4% in previous year and cf. 26.6% for Reed Elsevier overall • Outlook: • 'The budget environment, however, remains mixed. Overall, modest revenue growth is expected for the year.' http://www.reed-elsevier.com/mediacentre/pressreleases/2011/Pages/reed-elsevier-interim-results-2011.aspx

  8. Business Unusual Oddities of the journals business: • Payment in advance - 6-18 month interest-free loan to publishers • Payment in publishers’ choice of currency, not currency of customer • No guarantee of volume of material purchased • No guarantee of quality of material purchased (normally ‘peer’ reviewed’ but there are no peer review standards) • Little correlation between price and quality (however you define it) • Limited flexibility in big deals • Price in one medium based (in part) on price in another (obsolete?) medium

  9. Business Unusual • Many of theses features are not those that the customer would choose • This is indicative of a basically dysfunctional market: • Inelastic - customers respond weakly to price changes (both positive and negative) • Non-substitutable • Monopolistic • “The market under consideration is very far away from the ‘ideal perfectly competitive private market’ that has been celebrated ever since Adam Smith (1776)” • Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe, 2006

  10. Dysfunctional Market • In the UK, journal prices rose 158% between 1991 and 2001 • over five times the level of CPI inflation • Prices of the “Big Deals” for Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell journals rose by more than double the rate of CPI inflation in the six years from 2004 to 2010 • With exchange-rate fluctuations this has translated to cost increases of over 50% in the last four years • Some big deals now cost the institution over £1m per year • Arbitrary ‘list prices’ for individual journal titles mean breaking the big deals could actually be more expensive for institutions

  11. A Plea for Clemency • In 2009 ICOLC issued a Statement on the Global Economic Crisis and its Impact on Consortial Licenses • Principle 1:  Flexible pricing that offers customers real options, including the ability to reduce expenditures without disproportionate loss of content, will be the most successful.  • Principle 2:  It is in the best interest of both publishers and consortia to seek creative solutions that allow licenses to remain as intact as possible, without major content or access reductions. • With these two principles in mind, we suggest the following approaches: • Purchasers will trade features for price; that is, we can do without costly new interfaces and features.  • Putting price first will help all parties, because budget pressures will drive decisions in a way never seen before.  Real price reductions will be welcomed and can help to sustain relationships through the hard times. • Tailoring content to need and pricing accordingly can be very helpful.  • Multi-year contracts will be possible only with clear opt-out and/or reduction clauses.  • While annual payments currently are the most prevalent payment schedule for group licenses, options will be needed for semi-annual or quarterly payment schedules, in combination with more flexible opt-out/reduction clauses and renewal cycles. 

  12. The Bottom Line • We do not have the money to sign deals where prices rise and budgets fall

  13. A Solution? • "The only way for universities to save money is to make people redundant” • Graham Taylor, Publishers Association http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=414106

  14. The Only Way? • HE spends ~£190m per year on journals and databases • Roughly 10% of total QR funding • Each 1% price rise costs us £1.9m • How do we find those multiples of £1.9m? • Cut services (opening hours?) • Cut monograph purchasing (even further) • Cut non-big-deal journals - often smaller, society journals • Don’t we have a professional obligation to reduce price rises?

  15. Market Forces • Can the sector leverage its market power to improve terms and conditions from publishers? • We send JISC Collections to the negotiation table with limited ammunition • Ultimately, the strongest (and possibly only) weapon we have is the refusal to sign contracts that do not give us the terms and conditions that we want • New negotiations with the two largest NESLI publishers commenced earlier in 2011(with whom RLUK members spend almost 50% of journals budgets) • RLUK resolved to instruct JISC Collections to achieve deals in which: • Price decreases are commensurate with decreases in our budgets • Prices and payment is in Sterling • End to advance payments

  16. Affordable Subscriptions for Periodicals Initiative (ASPI) • Over the past year we gathered support for our position: • Russell Group VC, PVC-Research, Registrars • Wide base of support from Finance Directors (BUFDG) through to NUS • Initiated campus-based advocacy - at all levels through to Senate/Council • Highly public media campaign (Times Higher, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Economist) • We modelled alternatives to the big deal - providing a modelling tool to individual institutions • We provided a strong steer to JISC Collections as to what would be acceptable to the community

  17. Outcomes • The deals: • Covered by confidentiality clauses and so not much that can be said • As with all negotiations, there were compromises on both sides • We are convinced that the deals represent a saving over what we would otherwise have paid (£10-20million over the period of the deals) • We have sent a signal to other publishers that the UK HE community will no longer accept large price rises • We have a new tool for evaluating big deal subscriptions • Beginning to engender a cultural shift in our attitudes to pricing?

  18. Means and Ends • Reducing journal prices is NOT an end in itself • We wish to achieve it so that we can: • Protect our services • Protect and develop our collections • Innovate, so as to... • Develop services that meet the needs of 21st century scholars and students

More Related