ALJC, Partnership between ALPSP and Swets Information Services

Journal List 2010	Journal List 2008
Journal List 2009	Journal List 2007

Help for Existing users

Arrange a Free trial

Downloads

Frequently Asked Questions - For Publishers

Which publishers are participating in 2010?
How is the price to each consortium worked out?
How are my existing sales to the same libraries be affected?
Can I retain existing deals?
How is the money shared between publishers?
How are previous print subscriptions ascertained?
Does the package include print?
Does the package include back volumes?
What about my existing online journals?
What if my journals aren’t already online?
Can I include non-journal materials?
What happens if my titles are available under the Open Access model?
How is the package branded? Will I lose my own publisher or journal identity?
How are customers authenticated?
Who is the contract with – ALPSP or Swets?
What is the licence like?
Do I have to sign licences with each customer?
What input do publishers have?
How is the collection sold?
What sales information do I get?
What usage information do I get?
Do customers have to purchase the collection via Swets?
What returns can I expect?
How long am I signing up for?
What’s the timescale for publishers?
I’m not an ALPSP member – can I take part?
I have more questions – who do I ask?

Which publishers are participating for 2009?
The complete 2010 list of journals and publishers can be found here.

How is the price to each consortium worked out?
The price of the ALJC package is calculated by looking at the participating publishers’ existing sales to the member libraries, including recent cancellations, plus an increase to 2010 subscription price levels (the so-called E-Content Fee) and an increment for electronic access to all the journals in the collection (the so-called E-Access Fee). Both ‘print maintained’ and ‘electronic-only’ options are available. Customers are offered a 5% discount on the E-Content Fee when chosing the 'electronic-only' option.

The price will increase by 5% (plus an adjustment for new journals added) in 2011 and 2012. Current year values will apply to new journals added in subsequent years.

The price thus both preserves publishers’ existing print revenue for the next three years, and adds additional revenue from electronic access to all their journals (whether previously subscribed to or not). More details are available to interested publishers on request from Katinka Bratvold (info@alpsp-collection.org).

In future years, the model may need to be revised in the light of experience and market developments; the Steering Committee will oversee this.

How are existing sales to the same libraries affected?
Your revenue is protected against cancellations for the next three years. You also stand to gain additional revenue from any of your journals which you were not previously selling to that customer.

Can I retain existing deals?
If you already have deals in place with certain consortia, or if - despite the considerations outlined above - you feel you would be better off continuing to sell to certain customers through your existing channel, then your journals can still be included in the collection; they will be excluded, however, from the pricing and revenue sharing calculations relating to that customer.

How is the money shared between publishers?
That part of the charge which is based on previous subscriptions continues to come to publishers as in previous years. The additional e-access charge is shared between publishers in proportion to the 2010 subscription price for each journal. Publishers receive payment twice yearly, in June and December.

How are previous print subscriptions be ascertained?
Swets ask both the publisher and the libraries to provide their own figures; if these should differ, a figure is agreed between them. Given this cross-checking, the cost of an external audit is not felt to be necessary.

Does the package include print?
Both print-maintained and electronic-only options are available. In the latter case, publishers are encouraged to consider offering deep-discount print subscriptions to participating libraries as this has been found to be effective in retaining some subscriptions; Swets provide the necessary subscription details to make this possible. Of course, libraries can continue to purchase print subscriptions through their preferred route.

Does the package include back volumes?
The package includes all back volumes from 1997, where these are available from the publishers. If publishers have runs of earlier back files for sale, Swets's sales staff are happy to offer these alongside the collection; access is seamless to both the collection and the additional back files, via SwetsWise Online Content.

What about my existing online journals?
These are accessed via the SwetsWise Online Content gateway (there is a dedicated web page for the collection), but can continue to be hosted wherever you wish.

What if my journals aren’t already online?
We are only able to include online titles in the Collection although we are happy to include titles which will become available online from the year in which they are included in the Collection. Please note however we need to test your titles’ compatibility with the SwetsWise Online Content platform prior to accepting them into the Collection.

Can I include non-journal materials?
We are happy to arrange for your non-journal meta data to be tested on their compatibility with SwetsWise Online Content. If testing proofs to be successful your non-journal content is a very valuable addition to the collection.

What happens if my titles are available under the Open Access model?
If a journal became Open Access it could, of course, still be accessed through the ALJC gateway but would receive no share of the money and would be taken out of the pricing calculation. The publisher would have to collect author-side payments itself.

How is the package branded? Will I lose my own publisher or journal identity?
The ALJC as a whole is branded as an ALPSP package in partnership with Swets, but each individual journal retains its own distinctive title and publisher branding.

How are customers be authenticated?
Customers are authenticated (by IP address if possible, and otherwise by username and password) by Swets' proxy server, and passed to your own journal system as pre-authenticated customers. This gives users of the system immediate access to the whole collection (or subset) once they have authenticated themselves to the ALJC gateway; otherwise they could be presented with a whole variety of different prompts for authentication from the different publishers' sites, which would be extremely customer-unfriendly. It is, therefore, a condition of participation for publishers; customers are, however, free to access the licensed content through any other route if they prefer.

Who is the contract with – ALPSP or Swets?
Each publisher contracts directly with Swets – ALPSP is acting as a facilitator.

What is the licence like?
The collection is offered under a single standard licence, based on well established models, which is available here.

Do I have to sign licences with each customer?
No – Swets is acting as agent for all of the participating publishers. Your agreement with them grants them the right ('power of attorney') to sign on your behalf.

What input do publishers have?
The ALJC project is managed by a Steering Committee of representatives of ten of the participating publishers, plus a representative of ALPSP; Swets provides the Committee with regular progress reports, and consults the Committee over pricing, marketing and other matters. The Committee will also adjudicate if any disagreements should arise.

The members of the Steering Committee are;

Nick Evans, ALPSP
James Kitchen, OECD
Julie Neason, British Psychological Society
David Love, BC Decker
Steve Dane, Brill
Kumar Patel, Research Information
Steve Byford, Society for Endocrinology
Peter Williams, Professional Engineering Publishing

How is the collection sold?
Interested consortia can sign up for a 30-day free trial.
Swets is focusing its sales efforts first on those countries where the participating publishers have the largest market penetration (and their subscriptions are thus most at risk from cancellation due to ‘Big Deals’ taking up more of the available funds), and/or where national or regional consortia have already successfully negotiated multiple year deals with publishers of large collections. Swets’s experienced international Consortia/Multi-site Services team are overseeing the sales activity.

What sales information do I get?
Swets provide bi-monthly reports to particpating publishers on the licences which they have sold.

What usage information do I get?
For accesses to the collection via SwetsWise usage statistics are provided to both publishers and libraries on a regular basis.

Do customers have to purchase the collection via Swets?
No – they are free to use their preferred subscription agent, who in turn deals with Swets. In this instance, Swets Information Services are acting as the publishers’ agent/aggregator.

What returns can I expect?
It’s impossible to predict accurately, but the project has been created on the basis that most, if not all, of the consortia sales will be sales which the participants could not have made individually, and will therefore represent incremental revenue. The pricing model in any case protects your print subscription revenue for the next three years.

How long am I signing up for?
The agreement with Swets runs for three years in the first instance, so if you sign up for the 2010 Collection you will be agreeing to participate until the end of 2012; we hope to add more publishers year by year as the benefits of participation become increasingly obvious and that existing participants will roll their agreements forward in due course to allow Swets to sell further 3-year licences in 2010 and beyond.

What’s the timescale for publishers?
For the 2010 Collection the list is now complete. In order to maximize sales, the Collection is announced in late July/early August for the following year. In view of this, new publishers have to sign and return contracts before 1st June. If you express an interest in joining, we will contact you in March for the following year to give you plenty of time to sign contracts before the 1st June deadline. If you are interested in adding your journals to the Collection for 2011, please complete the form or contact Katinka Bratold (info@alpsp.collection.org).

I’m not an ALPSP member – can I take part?
The collection is only open to journals published by or on behalf of members; however, you are welcome to join ALPSP in order to take part in 2011. You will find details of how to join at www.alpsp.org/memship.htm.

I have more questions – who do I ask?
Contact Nick Evans at ALPSP, email nick.evans@alpsp.org, tel +44 (0)20 8789 2394, or katinka Bratvold at Swets, email info@alpsp-collection.org, tel +31 252 435 367.