As journal prices rise, libraries struggle

Scientific publishing is big business. As the cost of science journals continues to skyrocket, with some increasing by more than 10 percent per year, librarians like Deborah Jakubs, vice provost for library affairs, struggle to keep up their collections. Meanwhile, Duke professors have started to react by refusing to submit manuscripts to certain commercial publishers who demand what they consider outrageous prices.

A small but significant number of prestigious and popular science journals have increased subscription prices substantially beyond their costs of production. Even though Duke spends more than 70 percent of its annual $8 million library materials budget on serials, it has been forced to cut more than $300,000 worth of journals and databases from the Perkins Library System. Yet the demand for journals such as Brain Research, which costs more than $20,000 per year, remains because faculty members rely on these publications for scholarly research.
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'The commercial publishers know this, especially those in the medical arena, and have charged horrendous prices,' said James Siedow, vice provost for research. 'The university libraries are being gouged, pure and simple.'
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While non-profit scientific societies have resisted the artificial inflation of their publications" prices, many of the most prestigious journals, such as Cell, are profit-seeking enterprises.
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It is becoming increasingly clear that libraries simply cannot keep up with these costs, and faculty and librarians are looking for alternatives.
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Stocking the shelves
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The universe of journals for Perkins Library is not infinitely expanding. 'As good stewards of our resources, we are always watching for duplication in databases and coverage, and we currently have a policy cutting a journal of comparable cost to add another,' Jakubs said.
EEE The library keeps statistics on journal use and occasionally decides to buy individual articles rather than subscribing to whole journals.
EEE The complete library collections budget is essentially divided into two parts: the part that supports ongoing journal and database payments and the part that encompasses one-time payments. Jakubs said that as the costs of journals have risen, the relative proportion of funds available for books and other one-time purchases diminishes. If the library"s funds are tied up in serials, it has less flexibility to make other purchases.
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Many librarians are asking why journal prices are increasing so rapidly. According to publishing giants like Reed Elsevier, the cost of creating electronic journals has increased the cost of doing business.
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Prior to digital formats, publishers had no great need for large, robust servers, complex authentication systems or support staffs. Publishers also claim they lose subscriptions from individuals when a library obtains a site license, and therefore they must increase their prices.
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The journal Science, for example, has experienced an inverse relationship between the number of site licenses and the number of subscribers. Finally, some advertisers are not convinced that e-journals are the best way to advertise, and publishers claim they are losing revenue when they put journals online.
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'I also think that the publishers thought they had an inelastic market: Libraries would pay whatever they charged. Therefore, many were eager to earn higher profits and quickly recoup their [information technology] development cost,' Thibodeau said. 'Unfortunately, they misjudged the economy and the ability of academic institutions to increase library budgets.'
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EE Harold Baranger, chair of the physics department, said the price of scientific journals varies widely. The journals published by scientific societies are substantially less expensive than commercial publishers.
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The physics department at Duke has responded to the rising cost of journals by passing a resolution calling everyone in the department to no longer submit papers to journals published by Reed Elsevier and to decline to edit for them. 'As more departments around the country join this effort, we hope that library journal costs may be alleviated for all,' Baranger said.
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Roxanne Springer, an associate professor in the physics department, said the response will only be successful if there is widespread participation of the scientific community, both within and beyond Duke, to boycott and if universities pledge that tenure and promotion decisions will not be affected by a faculty member"s participation in the boycott.

Duke faculty said the rising costs of science journals will have little effect on undergraduate teaching or formal coursework in general. 'The place it has impact is on research--undergraduate, graduate and faculty. In all areas of our department, having the latest information about what others are doing is critical to our success,' Baranger said.

More disconcerting to Baranger was the indirect effect of rising journal prices on the purchase of research monographs or collections of review articles. 'As journals consume an ever larger fraction of the library budget, purchase of books becomes very constrained and may hurt students starting research or faculty entering new areas,' he said.