medinfo

Koordiniertes Handeln senkt Zeitschriftenpreise

28. October 2004 by ob | Kategorien: Publikationswesen

Bereits im Januar erschienen, aber hochinteressant: Carl T. Bergstrom and Theodore C. Bergstrom. “The costs and benefits of library site licenses to academic journals.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 January 20; 101(3): 897-902. doi:10.1073/pnas.0305628101. article from PNAS via HighWire. Zitat:

If a journal is priced to maximize the publisher’s profits, scholars on average are likely to be worse off when universities purchase site licenses than they would be if access were by individual subscriptions only.
… university libraries, acting in their collective interest, should agree to purchase a journal site license only if the subscription price is close to the publisher’s average cost.
… university libraries face a collective action problem. If all were to refuse to buy site licenses to the expensive commercial journals, publishers would have to cut prices and all would benefit. However, each individual library would better serve its patrons by purchasing a site license despite the cost. Some sort of coordinating mechanism among libraries could facilitate a collective response to this. [Hervorhebung von mir]

Damit hätten wir dann auch eine einfache Lösung für die überteuerte Nature Clinical Practice Series (gebloggt am 25.10.): Keiner kauft eine Site License und über kurz oder lang sinken die Preise! [via Open Access News]