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Elsevier Pricing for 2008
*Please excuse any duplication.*
The following letter has been mailed to all Elsevier customers.
It describes pricing for journals in 2008.
Kind regards,
Daviess Menefee
Library Relations
July 5
Dear Librarian:
During the past year my staff and I have talked extensively with
customers, receiving guidance on a range of issues from products
and pricing to service and support. Underpinning all such
conversations has been the key concept of value. Whether the goal
is satisfying researchers, clinicians, or institutional
administrators, librarians and publishers alike are increasingly
challenged to measure and report on how well our investments
perform for our organizations and our patrons.
Elsevier is committed to delivering value for customers by
continually improving our customer service and product
functionality in addition to supporting ongoing growth in the
number of articles published and rapidly expanding online usage.
While we may still have a way to go, we hope that we are making
positive progress.
Since January 2005, we have systematically surveyed customers
worldwide every quarter. Your feedback is invaluable in helping
us to understand how we can improve our customer service. In our
most recent survey, customers ranked Elsevier higher than other
publishers in 8 out of 10 categories, an improvement over last
year. Your suggestions have also enabled us to make further value
enhancements to the functionality of our products, such as the
h-index that we recently added to Scopus, and the launch of 4,000
more e-books on ScienceDirect-representing over 2 million
additional pages worth of scientific output.
For decades, the number of research articles published each year
has grown by around 3-4% annually. Last year was no exception and
in fact, growth of Elsevier-published articles increased above
this long-term rate. Online usage of Elsevier-published articles
on ScienceDirect continues to increase by more than 20%:
ScienceDirect recently passed the milestone of 1 billion articles
downloaded. This spectacular achievement demonstrates the value
that your investment in quality content makes for your
institutional community. Downloads onto the desktops of over 16
million researchers, clinicians, and students around the globe
now continue at a rate exceeding on average over 700 articles per
minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
As we strive to offer more value by improving service and product
functionality as the number of articles published and downloaded
continues to expand, Elsevier is targeting a price increase of
just below six percent on average across our journals in 2008. As
usual, you can expect the 2008 title-by-title price lists to be
posted on Elsevier.com
<http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/subscriptionpricelist.librarians/subscriptionpricelist/description
in August. Elsevier's price increase has placed us in the lowest
quartile of the industry for the past six years, and we hope that
this year's increase will enable us to remain in this range. As a
point of reference, the 2007 average increase across all STM
publishers was 7.89% in Europe and 8.73% in the U.S.*
We recognise that staying the course is not enough. The need for
a fresh business approach is central to sustaining demonstrable
value. Elsevier continues to participate in pilots that inform
new business models. Customers like you have brought to our
attention the need for models that reflect the value of
individual journal content, address the challenges of fluctuating
global currencies, and better reflect equity among institutions.
Please continue to participate in these discussions with us by
staying in close contact with your account manager and sharing
your ideas and opinions.
We are dedicated to continually improving the value we provide to
customers while making genuine contributions to the scientific
and medical/healthcare communities. On behalf of Elsevier, thank
you for helping us improve and for continuing to value our
content, products, service, and staff. I believe that through
consistent dialogue, we will achieve even more by working
together in the year ahead of us.
Sincerely,
Frank Vrancken Peeters
Global Sales Director, Elsevier
*Elsevier's 5.5% price increase in 2007 placed us within the
lowest quartile of publishers' average price increases when
institutional journal price data, taken from official publisher
price lists, is compared between 2006 and 2007. The figure of
slightly below six percent for 2008 is an average across our
titles. The cost for your institution's print collection will
depend upon your particular mix of titles, and that electronic
subscription fee changes, if any, will depend upon the terms of
your ScienceDirect contract.
###