On March 16th Adam Chesler participated in an interview session to discuss the new ACS Value-Based Pricing Plan. Andrea Twiss-Brooks, librarian from the University of Chicago, asks Adam a series of questions that help to provide you with all of the important details about the new plan.
The new ACS Value-Based Pricing Model: Introduction
By Adam Chesler, Assistant Director, Library Relations and Customer Service
In 2008, the Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) will introduce a value-based subscription model designed for the digital environment of today and tomorrow. Based on objective criteria and developed with a few key guiding principles in mind, this new pricing model has several innovative characteristics.
In this and forthcoming issues of LiveWire, we’ll explain how ACS Publications developed this new pricing model, examine its different components, and help subscribers better understand what it means to them. It’s our goal to work with our customers to ensure a smooth transition that enables them to maintain the broadest possible access to the most-cited (and, we believe, highest-quality and highest-value) journals in chemistry (ACS Pubs also has created a website dedicated to providing subscribers with information about this pricing model).
Here’s what’s in store in this and future issues of LiveWire:
April: The new value-based pricing model: Introduction
May: The academic models: Domestic (U.S.) and international
June: The corporate and government models
July: Individual journal pricing
Why a new model?
ACS journals are already available in some 4,000 institutions worldwide, the majority via academic consortia (100 of them, in 80 countries). ACS journal prices are, generally, around half the average in the field, and their citations rank first in seven core chemistry areas as defined by ISI® (and first in seven other areas as well). With usage of ACS journal content setting records every year (ACS journal articles were downloaded 43.8 million times in 2004, 51 million times in 2005, and 55.1 million times in 2006, based on COUNTER-compliant statistics reports) and new customers signing up for access every month, why change?
A few reasons
ACS journal prices have been based on institutions’ print holdings, which is clearly an archaic approach. First, subscriber needs have changed over the past decade, so assuming that the same number of copies of any given journal is still required places unreasonable demands on subscribers. Second, the Internet creates an environment in which only one “copy” is really necessary. Distribution can be campus-wide and available to multiple users simultaneously, not to just one person at one location at one time. Third, subscribers and publishers alike can now measure usage and reader activity more accurately than ever before, with standardized usage statistics and IP-level granularity. Fourth, using historic print subscriptions as a basis for pricing electronic publications creates problems for new customers or new journals, where no print history exists—so what becomes the basis for a subscription price, especially in a consortium or multiple-site environment?
ACS Pubs needed to come up with a system better suited to subscribers’ needs and to better utilize the technology available. Many customers had complained about the shortcomings of print-history–based pricing. Armed with what seemed like terabytes of data and no shortage of ideas, we kicked off the process in 2004.
Changing the very definition of a subscription
Previously, subscribers to ACS journals received electronic access to the current year plus the previous four years; all older content was stored in the ACS Legacy Archives database, to which access was available via a separate subscription. In spring 2005, ACS Pubs announced its first landmark change: starting in January 2006, the front-file would comprise all material published since 1996—no more “drop-off” years—and the ACS Legacy Archives, would become a fixed database of content covering 1879 through 1995. It also would be available, for the first time, for a one-time payment plus a nominal annual maintenance fee (see the ACS Legacy Archives website for additional information).
Dozens of libraries and consortia have taken advantage of this option over the past 16 months, so we’re pleased to have been able to provide customers with a choice of payment methods for this vast and vital storehouse of chemistry information and research.
Next step: The front-file
ACS Pubs sought a model that would follow several guiding principles: ensure similar kinds of customers paid similar amounts for content; broaden access to ACS journal content by ensuring that all institutions—large or small, academic or corporate, independent or part of a consortium—would have access to all ACS journals; encourage participation in the ACS Cycle of Excellence, in which scholars around the world participate in our publishing program as not only readers but also as authors and reviewers; and minimize disruption for subscribers and ACS.
Sounds pretty noble. And daunting.
The ACS Pubs pricing team spent countless hours reviewing data about customers, talking to subscribers (including our Library Advisory Group, a stalwart team that has provided us with sound, frank counsel for many years) and other publishers, and consuming unhealthy quantities of grappa (a joke – sort of). To cut a long story short, after some particularly spirited ICOLC presentations in Philadelphia and Rome and numerous internal debates, the team set the framework for the new model: it would be based on objective criteria, and it would reward our academic consortia partners, who bring a great deal of value and support to ACS. The new model would create a mechanism for introducing new titles to all our customers and new customers to all our titles. And it would have to be implemented over time; we couldn’t expect to flip a switch and have every customer “on model” right away.
The customer interview process revealed that subscribers and their patrons have fundamentally different ways of viewing and using our content, so we categorized subscribers in clearly-defined segments: academic, corporate, and government/not-for-profit. After doing that, we methodically reviewed data about each group and refined the models so they would best suit each kind of customer, because a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t allow us to meet all those guiding principles mentioned earlier.
Once we had models—after we had built, torn down, rebuilt, revised, tweaked, and retweaked them—two hurdles remained. First, we had to present them to the ACS Governing Board for Publishing (GBP), which would approve or deny our request to introduce this plan to subscribers. Second, after the plan was approved, we would have to figure out how to implement it. In November 2006, a year of nearly non-stop effort was rewarded with GBP approval of the proposal. All that hard work was rewarded by … even more hard work. It quickly became apparent that implementing a new pricing model would be a greater challenge than creating it.
The ACS Pubs pricing model team then reinvented itself to some extent, focusing more on systems requirements and communication plans. How would we manage the data on our computer system, with no standard renewals taking place in the first year? How would we get the word out to customers, so they had adequate notice? How would we work with our subscription agent partners? We went to work. While we’d been thinking about these issues all along, now we had to put the wheels in motion.
Coming together
The ACS Pubs sales team has already started meeting with customers worldwide. It’s our goal to visit—on site or at library conferences such as ACRL, UKSG, MLA, SLA, and ALA—with our top 200 accounts worldwide in the months to come, and we’ve been modifying our software systems to accommodate the new pricing structure.
In next month’s LiveWire, you’ll read about specific aspects of the pricing model, starting with the academic component. Or, if you can’t wait that long, please visit our pricing website, where there’s much more detail available.
We want to hear your questions, comments, and suggestions about the new ACS value-based pricing plan. Although we’ve set up a dedicated mailbox, you may contact your account representative if you prefer. And you may write to me directly at any time.
Thanks for your continued support as ACS Publications puts these new models in place over the next few years.
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