I was doing my generalized clicking around this afternoon and saw this FriendFeed comment (originally via Twitter) “How much does an annual library subscription to the top 20 closed-access journals cost? Lets start a virtual library for non-scientists.” I was all set to comment “Hey there aren’t really individual prces for a lot of those journals because of bundling and bla bla bla” but then realized someone else had gotten there before me and included a link to just such a list.
I had not seen the University of California’s Office of Scholarly Communication price list before but there it is in all its resplendent glory. Bill Hooker ran some analysis on these numbers back in March (start here if you are truly a numbercrunching fanbrarian) and draws some interesting conclusions. If you really like this sort of thing, you really should put Open Reading Frame in your feed reader.
Have you or any of your readers ever seen that video that compares the price of journal subscriptions to things that regular people buy? I used to have a link but can’t find it anywhere. It has things like a particular journal subscription for a year could also get you a new Honda… I’d love a link if anyone has it.
Lisa – this Cornell U website has similar info:
http://astech.library.cornell.edu/ast/engr/about/stickershock_1.cfm