Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Elsevier price cuts in physics attributed to pressure from OA

Sami Kassab, Reed Elsevier: Announces higher journal price increases than expected, forwarded to liblicense-l, August 7, 2009. Kassab is an analyst at the bank Exane BNP Paribas.

Elsevier has just published its 2010 print journal price list. We estimate the median price increases at 5% with key titles such as The Lancet up 9.5% and Cell Press up 4%. While these price increases only pertain to print-only subscriptions (c 10% of divisional revenues), we believe they suggest that Elsevier has maintained an aggressive pricing policy despite current library budget constraints. Its main competitor, Springer, also announced a 5% price increase for 2010. ...

We see Elsevier's decision to cuts prices for its nuclear physics journals by 20% as a reflection of the progress of Open Access, which prevails in this discipline. Should Open Access reach critical mass in other disciplines, similar pricing pressure is likely. With the FRPAA act likely to pass in the US, Open Access will continue to grow. ...