Printable Versions: Word Document | PDF

Serials Prices 2005-2007 with Projections for 2008      July 15, 2007

Serials Cost History and Price Projections

2008 Serials Price Projections

EBSCO uses recent price information received from major publishers and historical price data to project price increases for the upcoming year.  As always, it is prudent to be cautious in price projections as we must rely primarily on historical trends and current estimates.

Overall, the pricing information received as of the date of this release indicates base publisher price increases for 2008 will be similar to those of 2007.

The projected serials price increase for 2008 is 6- 8 percent.

Serials Price Factors

Many factors affect serials prices each year: technology and electronic hosting costs for online titles, currency exchange rates, postal rates and handling costs related to print titles, changes to publisher pricing models, take-over of titles of one publisher by another increases in pages and/or volumes, and overall general inflation.

Costs associated with online hosting of e-journals and investments in the latest technologies can impact electronic journal prices too. The shift toward electronic information has given publishers an opportunity to find new and unique pricing models for their content. 

2005-2007 Historical Price Increases by Library Type

The chart “Journal Price Increase History” shows price fluctuations over the last years for typical library lists.

Library Type	2005 % price Increase	2006 % price Increase	2007 % price Increase
Research Libraries	8.09%	7.72%	8.30%
College & University	8.01%	7.92%	7.99%
Academic / Medical	8.71%	8.04%	8.42%
Corporate	6.92%	6.36%	7.18%
Public Library	3.12%	2.66%	3.50%

Data for each library type is based on a merged list of titles ordered by representative libraries. These figures do not include currency exchange rate impact. They are based on a weighted average of the actual ordering patterns of a significant number of representative libraries.

Click on this link for more detailed information (2003 –2007 Price history)

Currency Impact

The influence that currency rates variations have on publisher price increases is complex to evaluate as currency markets are volatile. Price impact will be different depending on the location of the publisher and the customer billing currency.

Over the past twelve months, the U.S. Dollar has weakened against both the Euro and the Pound.  The Euro and the pound are stronger today against the U.S. dollar than in the fall of 2006 when customers were invoiced and publishers were paid.

If the value of the dollar continues to decline relative to other currencies, this could have a positive impact on European customers’ budgets purchasing U.S. dollar priced journals.

2008 Projected Price Increase by Customer Billing Currency

The following chart presents the projected price increase by customer billing currency, and includes the currency impact described above.

Billing Currency	U.S. Journals %	U.K.Journals %	European Journals %
Australian dollar	4 to 6	10 to 12	11 to 13
British pound	1 to 3	6 to 8	6 to 8
Canadian dollar	1 to 3	5 to 7	5 to 7
Euro	1 to 3	6 to 8	6 to 8
New Zealand dollar	13 to 15	19 to 21	19 to 21
South African rand	12 to 14	18 to 20	19 to 21
U.S. dollar	6 to 8	11 to 13	11 to 13

Generally, an increase of more than 6 to 8 percent reflects an adverse currency impact, and an increase of less than 6 to 8 percent reflects a favorable currency impact.

Conservative Budgeting

As always, EBSCO recommends customers add another 2 to 4 percent to the estimated price increases when budgeting to protect themselves from a weakening of the currency in which they are invoiced between now and the time subscription payments are paid.

EBSCO continually communicates with major publishers regarding projected price increases and monitors world currency exchange rates. Should we see major developments in these areas, we will update our information regarding projections.

As mentioned above, these price projections are for individual print and electronic journals and do not consider overall spending related to purchasing  e-packages which may result in effective spending increases above the averages presented in the table.

Other Budgeting Tools

EBSCO provides price projections to assist customers in forecasting the effect of future serials costs on their budgets. These projections should be used as one tool in the budgeting process. EBSCO offers other budgeting and collection analysis tools that provide information specific to a customer’s collection. Some of the serials management reports offered are:

• The Historical Price Analysis report, which tracks the cost of all titles ordered through EBSCO over a specified period of time and provides percentage-of-change comparisons;
• The Customized Budget Analysis report, which provides specific price projections for customers’ titles ordered through EBSCO;
• The Online Availability Report (with estimated prices), which lists journals on order with EBSCO that are available online either in combination with or separate from the print subscription (displays each publisher’s access requirements and the institutional rate for the online journal); and
• Collection Development and Assessment Reports, which allow customers to evaluate the importance of particular titles to their collections.

Please contact the EBSCO Regional Office nearest you for more information about these reports.