Okay, okay, if you insist, Anthony. ;) A couple of points I'm trying to make:
1) VERY little is offered in print-only format any longer in the journal world. Our periodicals mgr. said that the American Institute of Physics does, for instance, offer 6 tiers for their print + online titles. And for those journals we are likely to still get in print only - popular titles such as Rolling Stone or Time - we pay the same rate as an individual would. As you already noted, once we get into online access, there is typically all manner of tiering or pricing based upon FTE. 2) The other point for me is the issue of limited budget. I get that a large university is purchasing films for a tremendous number of faculty and students. However, consider this, please. You know how Choice creates it's "Outstanding Academic Titles" each year, which are those books it feels are essential and should be in all or most academic libraries? While there is no such list for films, there ARE a couple of similar-idea lists - ALA's Notable Videos and Video Librarian's Best of the Year list. Let's say these are similar to Choice's Outstanding Title book list in that they contain items most libraries really ought to own. Let's say there are 30 titles between the two lists. Let's say, as you are suggesting one ought to do in an academic library, we purchase them at the institutional/educational rate, even when they're available from the retail market at home use level. I think it's fair to say that institutional-level documentaries average $250 a pop, no? So 30 titles X $250 for the films that pretty much any academic library will want to own in order to have a solid base collection = $7,500. My point is this: for a university the size of USC or Northwestern or Columbia or NYU, $7,500 is likely a drop in the bucket in order to have that base upon which to build. For a small liberal arts college the size of Wabash or Kenyon or Davidson or Bowdoin (I'm going through my daughter's most-wanted list right now), that $7,500 is likely a LARGE percentage of the annual budget. Just buying that base of core titles that all libraries ought to have now means there's a lot of stuff I have to pass up. *If,* however, I can buy half of those 30 DVDs at home use level through Amazon, because they're there and because we likely don't need PPR, I will now have to spend (15 X $250) + (15 X $25) = $4,125. I've now freed up $3,375, which will go a long way out of my $12K-$15K annual budget to buy additional documentaries, popular features, etc. Does it not make sense why I advocate for an FTE-based or type-of-academic-institution-based pricing mechanism? Susan at Wabash From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Anthony Anderson Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 1:25 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Videolib] A Distributor's Response Susan! You're absolutely right about the price differentials that many vendors make for databases (and some journals) on the size of the institutions. I was speaking more about what academic institutions pay for paper journal subscriptions. And please don't shut up! :-) This is a good conversation. Best, Anthony
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
