1. ACS tiered pricing analysis Bottom line—the major problem with the new model is that it is regressive: Higher fee customers pay a little less and lower fee customers pay a lot more.

2. Did all consortia opt to adopt the new pricing model? No. Many chose to remain with a fixed % increase on the total (print legacy-based) cost, passing on a predictable annual increase to partcipants. Did the new pricing scheme hide an overall ACS effort to increase prices more than usual? No. The annual price increase was 6.2% for the first 2 years, and 6.7% forecast over 5 yrs (based on grand totals). ACS has generally been careful to ensure that the consortial level increases are historically appropriate as part of migration. Did the average price increase experienced by members reflect these overall numbers? No. It was higher (~12%) even though some libraries had price reductions because of very high percent increases for the smaller/lower tier libraries.

3. How does the legacy-based pricing compare to the ‘value-based’ tiers? PhD granting institutions (Tier 3-5) tend to pay more in the ‘legacy-based’ model – Of the 43 inst paying >= 5% more than tiered price, 72% were PhD granting Undergrad & Post-Bac institutions (Tier 1-2) tend to pay more in the tiered ‘value-based’ model – Of the 31 inst paying >=10% less than the tiered price, 71% were UG/PostBac(See charts)

6. Biggest Challenges What are the biggest challenges of converting to the tiered model? -1 in 5 institutions has a greater than 20% increase per year over the 5 years to align with the tiered model (and some much higher than this). -1 in 10 institutions are paying >=9% more than the undiscounted (non-consortium) tiered list price (which ACS doesn’t publicize), making it hard to justify asking larger members to continue to compensate for smaller members, particularly if hey are new to the deal, and could get a lower price going it alone.

7. Equal % change over 5 years

8. Equal amount change over 5 years

9. ACS Migration letter Dear Mr. Rick Burke, As follow up to our conversations regarding pricing for SCELC for our Web Edition journals, please find a migration plan which will enable your institution to transition to the price point for the journals under our Value Based Pricing (VBP) model. Please note the following assumptions are applied to this transition period. 1. No changes are made to the titles and number of titles subscribed to. 2. No material change in usage behavior will occur. 3. No material changes to your organization will occur. The following summary is for the SCELC subscription to ALL Web Editions. Should any changes to the assumptions take place, then ACS Publications reserves the right to renegotiate the pricing of the migration plan.

10. Potential Next Steps Solicit other participants/protesters at ICOLC Meet with ACS Sales staff @ALA or before – to address lack of opt out clause in migration letter – to address the exorbitant increases for smaller schools/overpayment by larger schools represented in new model If not tier price changes, then more gradual increases and reduction in overall cost (through large school decrease) When that fails, draft (ICOLC?) resolution of protest & take to ACS board of directors – Focus on unintended consequences – Accreditation issues for smaller schools