Re: [CNI-COPYRIGHT] [CNI-COPYRIGHT] Re: "Do not sell to schools" and copyright

While I'm not certain what Michael meant to refer to, he describes the actions of bona fide subscription agencies such as Ebsco or Swets. I believe that most medium to large libraries, particularly academic ones, use such agencies. I'm sure the margin is much less when the agency purchases institutional subscriptions rather than individual ones, but apparently even reputable agencies can still provide enough savings in subscription costs and labor to make it worthwhile for libraries; and, the recent RoweCom/divine fiasco notwithstanding <http://www.infotoday.com/it/feb03/hane1.htm>, they make enough money through these same discounts and service fees to make it worthwhile for themselves as well.

Freya

>Lloyd wrote, quoting Michael Webster:
>
>>In regard to the comments about institutional pricing and subscription
>>agencies, jobbers have nothing to with journal prices. They make their
>>money by creating economies of scale and charging a "service charge" for
>>their services (payments, claims, replacement issues, etc.).
>
>I take it you are referring to this quote of mine:
>> Recently a company began purchasing journals at individual subscriber
>>prices and then reselling these journals to libraries at institutional
>>prices. This was quickly stopped by publishers and the company went out of
>>business. They could have faced criminal charges, but I don't believe
>>publishers pushed for this.
>
>This was a highly irregular get-rich-quick scheme designed by a single
>company. I'm sorry you didn't hear about it. I take it they tacked on
>service charges in addition to the differential prices they profited
>from. The case was reported in the Library Journal Academic News Wire
>sometime last year, probably prior to November, since I seem to have
>copies of the majority of those published from November on. You can
>probably find reference to it elsewhere, if you are actually
>interested. I'll leave it to you to dig it out.
Received on Tue Apr 08 2003 - 11:13:39 GMT