A Market to Die For?
Chris Beckett,
Serials-eNews,
Dec 05, 2002
A report from investment analyst Morgan Stanley is causing a ripple in the library community as it argues that due to the "inelasticity of demand" for academic journal articles, the trend favoring price increases and the centralization of publication sources (and specifically, Reed Elsevier). The inelasticity is caused primarily by the conservatism of content authors who tend to favour established journals over open publishing initiatives such as SPARC and OAI. How inelastic is the market? "Since 1986 the average price of a journal has risen by 215% while the number of journals purchased has fallen by only 5.1%." Proof, it seems, that university staff aren't as smart as everyone thinks.
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