Scientific publisher Nature Publishing Group (NPG), UK, has refuted the claims of California Digital Library (CDL) that NPG has steeply increased subscription rates. Earlier this month, CDL allegedly wrote to the University of California (UC) Divisional Chairs and Members of the UC Faculty, urging a boycott of NPG journals over the pricing policy.
NPG has responded that it has been publishing its academic site licence pricing for several years on its librarian gateway. Dollar list price increases have been reasonable (averaging roughly 7 percent over four years), and publicly available throughout, it argues. A 7 percent cap on annual list price increases is currently in place.
Further, NPG states that CDL has, for long, been enjoying huge discounts - of about 88 percent - due to certain consortia pricing polices. This translates into making other subscribers subsidise CDL, which would be unfair, NPG claims. It is therefore forced to correct the subscription prices for the library, bringing it close to a 50 percent discount.
Quoting CDL's own figures, NPG says the average cost of its journal was $4,465, well under the price of many major STM titles. Its projections show CDL will be paying roughly $0.56 per download under the new prices. This is seen to represent substantial value for money across any publisher's range of titles. NPG has further called on CDL to reveal how much it spends with all the major publishers, and how this translates into cost per use, and/or other indicators of value. If NPG represents poor value for money, it undertakes to work with CDL to readjust its pricing. On the other hand, if NPG represents good value for money compared with other publishers, even at the new proposed pricing, the publisher expects to see it reflected in their subscription agreement.
Condemning the proposed boycott, NPG has refuted claims that UC authors have contributed $19 million in revenue to the publisher over the past six years. It has expressed disappointment over CDL's purported use of misinformation in inappropriate contexts to create publicity with the threat of a boycott, as part of a negotiating tactic.
