2005 PRICING MODEL
LETTER FROM THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY (APS)
PUBLISHER OF PHYSICAL REVIEW, PHYSICAL REVIEW
LETTERS,
PHYSICAL REVIEW SPECIAL TOPICS, PHYSICAL REVIEW
ONLINE ARCHIVE,
AND REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS
TO
THE LIBRARY COMMUNITY
INTRODUCTION
The Council of the APS has established journal prices for
2005 and APS will be DECREASING PRICES for all tiers.
The publications of the APS include Physical Review A-E
(PRA-E), Physical Review Letters (PRL), Physical
Review Online Archive (PROLA), and Reviews of Modern
Physics (RMP). PROLA, with journal content back to 1893,
will continue to be available at no cost to subscribers of
the APS packages (PR-All and APS-All) and at a very modest
cost to those subscribing to portions of the package. In keeping
with the Society's goal of moving towards a pricing structure,
which reflects the diversity amongst its subscribers, the
larger decreases will be for the smaller institutions, as
follows:
| Tier 1 institutions prices will decrease 3.0% |
(35% of all subscriptions) |
| Tiers 2 and 3 institutions prices will decrease 1.0% |
(54% of subscriptions) |
| Tiers 4 and 5 institutions prices will decrease 0.5% |
(11% of subscriptions) |
The price decreases are in the
presence of continued growth in journal size and in manuscript submissions. They
reflect a long and intense development of new technology both by the Society and
its vendors as well as persistent attention to cost control by all of the staff.
They also represent the Society's commitment to returning the advantages of
technology to the community. The same percentage price decrease will apply to
print-plus-online and online only. APS sees the new technology as an exciting
challenge to end the period of unsustainable price increases.
Setting Prices for 2005
The elected Council of the APS
sets the prices of the journals after advice by the Publications Oversight
Committee (POC). A representative of the library community, appointed in
consultation with the Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics (PAM) division of the
Special Library Association (SLA), attends the POC committee meetings as an
observer and advisor. The guidelines set down by Council are that the journal
prices should cover costs with sufficient margin to allow for the uncertainty in
predicting costs and revenue two years in advance.
For 2005 it is assumed the size of
the journal will grow by 4% from 2004. This is based on a comparable growth in
submitted articles over most of 2003 and the fact that we see no trend that will
cause that growth to change. We are moving rapidly to fully electronic
manuscript handling in the office. This is a major factor in controlling costs.
In addition, we are anticipating a reduction in composition and production costs
of 20% compared with 2003. This will be accomplished by working with vendors who
are taking advantage of the new technology and working hard to integrate it into
their processes.
When all of predictable factors for expenses were folded
in with the revenue expectation, the APS Council decided to
move forward and decrease prices. The price changes for the
various tiers are shown in the chart below. The numbers in
the chart below represent the changes for APS-ALL and PR-ALL.
A full listing of prices is available at http://librarians.aps.org/Price05.pdf.
While individual journals will in general have the same price
decreases, revenue neutral adjustments have been made to the
price of Physical Review C and Physical Review
E single title subscription to account for uneven variations
in growth in recent years.
|
PRINT/ONLINE |
ONLINE ONLY |
| TIER |
PRICE CHANGE |
PRICE CHANGE |
| 1 |
-3.0% |
-3.0% |
| 2 |
-1.0% |
-1.0% |
| 3 |
-1.0% |
-1.0% |
| 4 |
-0.5% |
-0.5% |
| 5 |
-0.5% |
-0.5% |
Having reviewed the background, philosophy and details of the 2005 APS pricing
model, we welcome discussion and comments.
If you have any questions or concerns, please write to us at assocpub@aps.org.
Thomas J. McIlrath
Treasurer/Publisher
American Physical Society
| 
