Journal Pricing (SPARC)

Journal Pricing

Recent News

September 29, 2011
Peers, review your actions
By Michael Taylor, from the Times Higher Education, September 29, 2011

SPARC is an active participant in the Information Access Alliance (IAA), a group of library organizations working to highlight the budgetary impact of the rapid escalation of the price of information, particularly of journals in science, technology, and medicine. SPARC supports and promotes activities of the IAA that are designed to seek new solutions to the problems associated with publisher bundling practices, and help to support the work of economists and antitrust scholars interested in looking at an area where unrestrained concentration is rapidly developing. Recent news is featured above. For a history of IAA activities, please visit the IAA site.

Journal Pricing Reference

Analysis by Content Area

Journal Cost-Effectiveness

Use this search engine to find internationally-published journals and rank them by price per article or citation. From Ted Bergstrom and Preston McAfee. Also see An Open Letter to All University Presidents and Provosts Concerning Increasingly Expensive Journals by the same authors.

Reality Bites: Periodicals Price Survey 2009
Van Orsdel, L. and Born, K. Library Journal. April 15, 2009.

Periodicals Price Survey 2008: Embracing Openness

Van Orsdel, L. and Born, K. Library Journal. April 15, 2008.

ARL - Libraries in the Marketplace - Journal Prices & Library Budgets

Rapidly rising journal subscription prices have severely eroded the ability of libraries, universities, and scholars to purchase the publications necessary for research and education. While the CPI increased 73% between 1986-2004, research library expenditures for serials incresed 273%.

U.S. Periodical Prices--2002

Albee, Barbara and Dingley, Brenda.
Prepared for the Library Materials Price Index Committee (LMPIC) of the ALA's Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS).The purpose of the index and accompanying tables and analysis is to measure changes in average U.S. periodical prices in a historical context.

Measuring the Cost Effectiveness of Journals: The Wisconsin Experience

Prepared for the University of Wisconsin, Madison Libraries and published in ARL: A Bimonthly Report on Research Library Issues and Actions from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, no. 205, Aug. 1999: 1-6.

Journal Cost Per Use Statistics

University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries provides Journal Cost Benefit reports covering the 1998-1999 fiscal year, for subject lines within their library collection budget.

Economics

Ted Bergstrom's Journal Pricing Page

Ecology

Bergstrom, Carl T., and Bergstrom, Theodore C. "The Economics of
Ecology Journals." Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, November 2006

Math

Journal Price Survey

American Mathematical Society, 2000.

Math Journal Price Survey

Rehmann, Ulf. A revised study based on AMS 2002 data published at the Universitat Bielefeld. The original publication: The annual plenary meeting of the chairmen of German math departments: 25. KMathF Plenarversammlung, 20. 5. 2000.