As unbelievable as it may seem, as a matter of policy publishers (Kluwer, Wiley, Elsevier, Academic) penalize libraries that have successfully kept their collections strong over the years, including Brooklyn College. How does this happen? Publishers base electronic subscription prices on the dollar amount of a library's print subscriptions as of a certain date, usually taking 1999 or 2000 as a base year. This punishes those libraries who have struggled to keep collections strong, as we pay substantially more for the very same e-journals than do our weaker or more profligate sisters. Pricing is definitely unfair, and there is not a thing to be done about it.
For example, in 2002 CUNY libraries paid these prices for the identical package of journals:
IDEAL:
| Baruch | 6,851 |
| Brooklyn | $55,384 |
| Graduate Center | 26,009 |
| Hunter | 44,090 |
| Queens | 3,960 |
| Staten Island | 21,026 |
SCIENCE DIRECT:
| Baruch | 2,898 |
| Brooklyn | 111,974 |
| City | 151,233 |
| Graduate Center | 30,877 |
| Hunter | 119,794 |
| Lehman | 15,608 |
| Queens | 84,686 |
| Staten Island | 30,796 |
WILEY INTERSCIENCE:
| Baruch | 16,800 |
| Brooklyn | 33,439 |
| City | 38,866 |
| Graduate Center | 12,520 |
| Hunter | 20,290 |
| John Jay | 14,850 |
| Lehman | 8,160 |
| Queens | 28,860 |
| Staten Island | 43,660 |
| York | 4,150 |
While Brooklyn spends a significant portion of its own budget to acquire full-text electronic information, like other CUNY schools we also rely on the University's support for some number of these popular yet costly materials. Within the limits of the central office's budget for such products, the librarians who make up the Electronic Resources Advisory Committee (ERAC) evaluate and recommend the purchase of various e-resources. Brooklyn is well represented on this group by Professors Beth Evans (our representative) and Susan Vaughn (who chairs ERAC).
Within CUNY, pricing models for electronic resources vary:
In some cases, the University pays the entire cost for a resource.
Whatever the model, the benefit Brooklyn realizes from CUNY-central's negotiating power and that obtained through our other consortial relationships is substantial. (Susan Vaughn participates in the semi-monthly meetings of the State's Consortia of Library Consortiums, a group which explores new approaches to acquiring electronic resources and licensing issues.) This year, we spent $130,270 on electronic services. The value of the products funded by the central office was approximately $71,700.
