[Eril-l] Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online business model

Beth Jacoby bjacoby at ycp.edu
Thu Feb 22 06:06:55 PST 2018


We don't have this resource, but we had The Encyclopedia of Life Sciences,
another online Wiley product. We got it on a subscription basis, but
cancelled it after 2012 when the use didn't justify the $4700 annual
expenditure.

Wiley's pricing model(s) for their online encyclopedias are, in my opinion,
grossly out of line with the reality of library budgets. We bought the
Encyclopedia of Sociology (Macmillan, 2000) on the Gale Virtual Reference
Library platform at a reasonable one-time price many years ago. While it's
dated, in a world where our students are using library reference resources
less and less, it's hard to justify annual expenditures for content with
few updates.

Beth


​

Beth Jacoby
Content Development Librarian
Schmidt Library
Library & Technology Services
York College of Pennsylvania
441 Country Club Rd.
York, PA  17403-3651




On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:14 PM, Fortier Catherine <c.fortier at umontreal.ca>
wrote:

> Hello everybody,
>
>
>
> First, I want to apologize for my approximate English.
>
>
>
> I would like to share and hear your comments about the Blackwell
> Encyclopedia of Sociology Online business model. We acquired the online
> version in 2008 at a fairly high price (around US $ 10,000). We never
> bought the updates because we found them too expensive (about US $ 1,110
> per year) for the number of entries updated (at least before 2015). If we
> look carefully at the Excel file available on this page (http://www.
> sociologyencyclopedia.com/subscriber/uid=1088/?&authstatuscode=202), we
> notice that the number of updates is uneven from one year to the other :
>
>
>
> 2008 :25
>
> 2009 :14
>
> 2010 :1
>
> 2011 :3
>
> 2012 :11
>
> 2013 :21
>
> 2014 :43
>
> 2015 :383
>
> 2016 :252
>
>
>
> Since 2008, 753 entries have been updated (about 35% of the encyclopedia).
>
>
>
> This year, I have a little more financial resources and I want to buy the
> updates of 2015 and 2016. Our representative tells us that it is not
> possible and that we must buy all the updates since 2008 and it is very
> expensive.
>
>
>
> Do you own this resource in your library / institution?
>
> Do you find that it is essential or another encyclopedia is equivalent
> according to you (we also have the International Encyclopedia of the Social
> & Behavioral Sciences Online)?
>
> Did you buy the updates every year?
>
> What do you think about this model and especially, the frequency of the
> updates?
>
>
>
> Thank you in advance for your always relevant comments.
>
>
>
>
>
> *Catherine Fortier*
>
> Bibliothécaire
>
> Anthropologie | Sociologie
>
>
>
> Université de Montréal
>
> Bibliothèque des lettres et sciences humaines (BLSH)
>
> Pavillon Samuel-Bronfman
>
>
>
> B   3000, rue Jean-Brillant, Bureau 3097, Montréal QC H3T 1N8
>
> P   C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-ville, Montréal QC H3C 3J7
>
> T   514 343-6111 <(514)%20343-6111>, poste 2623
>
> F   514 343-7570 <(514)%20343-7570>
>
> c.fortier at umontreal.ca
>
> bib.umontreal.ca/ss <http://www.bib.umontreal.ca/ss>
>
>
>
> [image: cid:image005.png at 01CEB614.AE91B970]
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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