A General Econometric Model of the Determinants of Library Subscription Prices of Scholarly Journals: The Role of Exchange Rate Risk and Other Factors

Chressanthis, George A.; Chressanthis, June D.

doi:10.1086/602700

Cited by 10 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…11 It is also important to realize that while citation impact (IF percentile) was used here to represent the demand for particular journals, its use for that purpose is not well established. Although studies of single-journal subscriptions have generally used total circulation or library circulation to represent demand (Bensman, 1996;Chressanthis & Chressanthis, 1994a, 1994bOrtelbach et al, 2008;Petersen, 1992), there is no obvious way to gauge the demand for particular journals that are acquired through full-text databases, since most databases include important, high-demand journals as well as others for which there is little demand. Data availability is also a problem.…”

Section: Limitations Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Can differences in publisher size account for the relatively low prices of the journals available to master’s universities through commercial publishers’ databases? The importance of price discrimination and substitution effects

Walters

2022

Scientometrics

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Using price quotes and invoices for thousands of full-text databases and single-journal subscriptions, this study confirms that for a typical master’s university, the journals acquired through commercial publishers’ databases cost substantially less than those acquired through the databases of scholarly societies, universities, and other nonprofits. Moreover, the lower prices of commercial publishers’ journals cannot be readily attributed to publisher size (number of journals published) or to any of several other explanatory variables. There is a weak, direct association between publisher size and price among the for-profit journals but a stronger, inverse relationship between publisher size and price among the nonprofit journals. These findings, along with the results of previous research, suggest that resource providers may have incentives to keep prices low due to the collection development strategies adopted by many teaching-oriented colleges and universities. If the library’s goal is to hold a sufficient number of high-quality journals rather than to provide immediate access to every wanted journal, particular journals and databases may be regarded as substitutes even when each product provides unique content. Many U.S. bachelor’s and master’s institutions have goals different from those of the major research universities, and commercial publishers (along with some of the larger nonprofits) seem to recognize this when setting and negotiating prices.

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Section: Limitations Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Can differences in publisher size account for the relatively low prices of the journals available to master’s universities through commercial publishers’ databases? The importance of price discrimination and substitution effects

Walters

2022

Scientometrics

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“…There has been little recent work done on the effect of currency fluctuations on collection development in libraries, and virtually none from a Canadian perspective. Several articles addressed this issue in the 1980s and, to a lesser extent, the 1990s, but this research tended to focus on the US (Conrad, 1983;Hepfer, 1988;Strauch & Strauch, 1989;Chressanthis & Chressanthis, 1994;Dorn, Cox, Hoffer, Powell, & Mouw, 1995) as well as the UK (Fishwick, 1986), Australia (Burrows, 1993), India (Reddy & Suseela, 1995), Poland (Howorka, 1995), Tanzania (Kaungamno, 1985), and Ghana (Kedem, 1990). A few studies have been published in the last decade on the topic, but these examined India, the UK, and Malawi, respectively (Kapoor, 2010;Kidd, 2010;Mapulanga, 2012).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Canadian Dollar versus the Collection: How Canadian Academic Libraries are Coping

Scott

Eva

2017

Partnership

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Through 2015 and into 2016, Canadian academic libraries' collections budgets were severely strained due to the steady decline of the CAD/USD exchange rate. As most subscription fees for electronic resources (e-resources) are billed in US dollars, the falling value of the Canadian dollar significantly reduced libraries' purchasing power. This study is based on a survey of the English-speaking member institutions of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), a Canadian collections consortium, carried out to determine the impact of the poor exchange rate on collection development and how libraries are coping with new budgetary pressures. Librarians from 33 universities provided survey responses. Of these, 22 participated in telephone interviews to further discuss concerns and ideas regarding the current crisis. The study finds that all participant libraries have taken actions to address the budgetary shortfall, including cancelling serial and database subscriptions, negotiating lower costs with vendors, purchasing fewer monographs, and soliciting additional funding from their institutions. While the financial strain resulting from exchange rate fluctuations is indeed a significant problem for which solutions should be sought, several respondents stressed that it only exacerbates the ongoing inflation of e-resource subscriptions. This deeper and enduring issue, which is expected to outlast the present exchange rate crisis, is enabled by an inherently flawed scholarly publishing system. Thus, librarians engaged in discussions with their wider academic communities concerning collections budgets should not focus exclusively on the exchange rate but should leverage the opportunity to explore alternatives to the current scholarly communication model. If solutions exist, they will likely only be achieved through the support of faculty and university administrators, as well as cooperation among post-secondary institutions and library consortia.

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“…Several explanations have been advanced for the price increases (No11 and Steinmueller ( 1992), Chressanthis and Chressanthis ( 1993, 1994a, 1994b, Petersen ( 1992)). Chressanthis and Chressanthis, as well as Petersen.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation model for journal subscription by libraries

Quandt

1996

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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In the context of empirical work on the determinants of journal prices by several authors, the present article considers a simulation model of the evolution of library subscriptions when some costs increase for exogenous reasons. Journal costs are thought to consist of “first‐copy costs” and “additional copy costs”; when costs rise, subscription prices are increased by publishers and some libraries, being faced with fixed budgets, cancel some subscriptions. Publishers then find that the price charged is not correct and increase subscription prices again. This iterative process ultimately terminates in a new equilibrium that is characterized by significant erosion of total subscriptions. In one variant of the model, publishers may own more than one journal, and if they do, they realize economies of scope. The effect of various parameters on the final equilibrium is considered. The percentage of costs accounted for by first‐copy costs has no significant influence, but the profit made by publishers does: The higher the profit that publishers attempt to maintain, the lower is the erosion of subscriptions. A key element in the process is the algorithm employed by libraries to decide which journal subscriptions to cancel; when they cancel on the basis of the cost of the journal or the importance of the journal, many more journals go entirely out of business than when cancellation is essentially random. The final conclusion is that while the precise outcome depends on the parameters of the model, the erosion in subscriptions can be extremely severe. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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A General Econometric Model of the Determinants of Library Subscription Prices of Scholarly Journals: The Role of Exchange Rate Risk and Other Factors

Cited by 10 publications

References 21 publications

Can differences in publisher size account for the relatively low prices of the journals available to master’s universities through commercial publishers’ databases? The importance of price discrimination and substitution effects

Can differences in publisher size account for the relatively low prices of the journals available to master’s universities through commercial publishers’ databases? The importance of price discrimination and substitution effects

The Canadian Dollar versus the Collection: How Canadian Academic Libraries are Coping

Simulation model for journal subscription by libraries

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