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Elsevier 2009 Journal Pricing
The following letter announcing Elsevier 2009 pricing is being
sent to customers today. An original version of this letter may
also be found at:
http://www.elsevier.com/framework_products/Wcat/2009pricingletter.pdf
Daviess Menefee
Library Relations
Elsevier
7 July 2008
Dear Valued Customer,
If there is one constant in the world, it is change. During the
past year as my staff and I have talked extensively with
customers like you, receiving your guidance and suggestions on a
range of issues from information and value to service and
support, we have all commented on the seemingly fast pace of
change that is happening in our businesses. Researchers,
clinicians, and institutional administrators alike have
increasingly challenged the information flow-wanting it faster
and more integrated-in order to remain competitive and bring
about much needed outcomes. Central to enabling such changes are
libraries and publishers.
At Elsevier, we are committed to continually improving our
customer service and product functionality to support this
change, in addition to developing research workflow solutions in
order to increase scientific productivity and support discovery.
During 2007, usage of ScienceDirect grew by an impressive 24% to
over 386 million articles downloaded while both new content and
content quality increased. In fact, the average impact factor for
Elsevier journals increased by 2.1% from the previous year. We
are on track to over 460 million downloaded articles in 2008. We
have made further updates to the functionality of our products
based on customer and user suggestions. These include the much
lauded launch of eBooks on ScienceDirect as well as welcomed
navigational improvements like preview tabs, article toolbox, and
results filtering that simplify the research process on
ScienceDirect. Scopus made important additions such as Citation
Tracker, Affiliation Identifier, and TopCited, strengthening its
research functionality while at the same time increasing its
capabilities and acceptance for research performance measurement.
Scirus has added Topic Pages. And Elsevier successfully launched
2collab, a social networking resource for researchers and
clinicians.
Alongside changes in information needs, we recognize changes in
purchasing needs. We are committed to continuing the evolution of
our business models to better reflect the changes in how
institutions value, subscribe to, and use information. The vast
majority of customers hold ScienceDirect subscription agreements
which consolidate, manage, and cap their expenditures, and,
therefore, are no longer subject to the fluctuations of
individual title prices. That being said, we anticipate Elsevier
to remain in the lowest quartile of list print price increases in
the industry, as we have for the past seven years. As a point of
reference, the 2008 average list price increase across all STM
publishers was 8.70% in Europe and 10.10% in the U.S. For 2009
Elsevier again targets a global average list price increase of
not more than six percent. The 2009 title-by-title price lists
will be posted on Elsevier.com
<http://mail.elsevier-alerts.com/go.asp?/bECU001/mAAQFO8/q1AQXO8/uM4RK5/x2JZOO8/cutf%2D8> in August.
As needs and models evolve, our subscription agreements will
increasingly recognize the de-coupling of print from electronic
subscriptions. For individual journals, we are realigning prices
to reflect a number of factors, including differences in the
number of articles made available, quality, and usage, as well as
new factors such as Sponsored Articles. For a few key titles like
The Lancet, we are looking to recognize usage and value in the
form of tiered electronic pricing for institutions, similar to
Cell. The overall intent is a rebalancing of titles across our
portfolio. As a result, some titles will go up in price, while
others will go down. It is our belief that these changes, which
are planned over a period of years, will help preserve and better
reflect the value the information has to the research and
healthcare communities that we serve. In turn, this will further
enable even more flexibility and choice for customers.
We are dedicated to continually improving the value we provide to
customers while making genuine contributions to science and
healthcare around the world. On behalf of Elsevier, thank you for
helping us to continue making informed changes to our business
and for continuing to value our content, products, service, and
staff. I believe that through steady dialogue, we will achieve
even more by working together in the year ahead of us.
Sincerely,
Roy Jakobs
Global Sales Director, Elsevier