Academic journals costs & use

The request was successful.

Dear University of Bath,

This is an information request under the Freedom of Information Act of 2000.

I would like to be provided with the following information about academic/scientific journals specifically. For the latest ten financial or calendar years available:

#1 - How much the institution has been spending annually for all of its subscribed online access to academic journals for each publisher the institution has any academic journal subscription with? Per year?

#2 - How much the institution has been spending annually for each individually-subscribed journal (“à la carte”, not part of a bundle package)? What are these journals (their title?) and how much were they each year?

#3 - What is the number of successful full-text article requests for each subscribed journal (and its title) for each of the latest ten financial or calendar years? Note: I would like the data as well even if a given journal was not part of the university’s academic journal subscriptions at some point during that decade, either because of a subscription that happened later or because of the cancellation of a subscription. If so, please indicate it clearly for the year for which it applies (for instance, with an “X”, “Not subscribed”, etc.).

Please provide the data in a data file format like .csv .xslx, etc. Unless it would be much easier or quicker for you otherwise, please provide the requested data in three separate documents (one for Question #1, another for #2, and the last one for #3).

Some parts of this request may be easier to answer than others, and should this prove to be the case I would ask that you release available data as soon as possible rather than hold up the entire request.

Please let me know if my request exceeds the resources limit levelled by the FOI Act of 2000, and I would be glad to narrow it down. It is legally required for the institution to let me know if that is the case.

As well, if you need any clarification, then please contact me via email. Under your section 16 duty to provide advice and assistance I would expect you to contact me if you find this request unmanageable in any way.

I thank you very much, please do not hesitate to contact me if needed.

Yours faithfully,

Steve Carufel

Freedom of Information, University of Bath

Your email has been received and we will respond within the statutory timeframe for Freedom of Information requests.

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Delia Bean, University of Bath

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Carufel

 

 

The Freedom of Information request received 14 March 2018 constitutes a
volume of data over an extensive time period of ten years.

 

Due to the volume of information required, the request will be subject to
consideration under section 12: exemption where cost of compliance exceeds
appropriate limit. 

 

I wonder if you might be able to refine the information in this request
through reduction in the time period and information requested and state
what particular information, and what time period would be of most value,
so that we may help with some of the information required for your
research?    For instance, are particular publishers of interest in
particular years ?

 

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

D Bean 

 

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  [1]cid:image011.jpg@01D21E18.E760E0E0   Delia Bean, Freedom of
Information Officer 
    [2]University of Bath
    4 West 3.6, Bath BA2 7AY, United
Kingdom |

 Telephone: +44 (0)1225
383225       
                   

Email:  [email address]

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References

Visible links
2. http://www.bath.ac.uk/

Dear Delia Bean,

Thank you for getting in touch.

I totally agree to reduce the time period. Can it start in 2013-2014 for example?

I have been rewording my request, maybe this way would be more efficient, less time-consuming:

(a) to which journals (title for each) the institution has been subscribing to on an individual basis (not part of a package!).

(b1) their individual cost IF the subscription is on an individual basis, over time (each year).

(b2) for titles that are part of a package: a list of titles present in each package, per publisher, over time (if it changed).

(c) the cost of each subscription package overtime (Ex: Elsevier: 33333, JSTOR: 22222).

(d - less important) usage data for each journal only if already available in any convenient way (I think some institutions can simply download it from their providers) - reduce the timeframe for this information or discard this information altogether if this is likely to exceed cost limit. "Usage" can be interpreted here as any time when any one student, researcher or staff successfully accessed an article by a given subscribed e-journal. Again, I would simply scrap this part if that could free up resources for a, b1, b2 and c for the last 4-5 years.

With or without discarding "d" altogether, would that make my request easier to process within the cost limit?

Let me know, sorry for the back-and-forth!

Thank you very much!

Yours sincerely,

Steve Carufel

Freedom of Information, University of Bath

4 Attachments

Dear Mr Carufel

 

 

The University’s response is attached.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

D Bean

 

 

 

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  [1]cid:image011.jpg@01D21E18.E760E0E0   Freedom of Information Officer 
    [2]University of Bath
    4 West 3.6, Bath BA2 7AY, United
Kingdom |

 Telephone: +44 (0)1225
383225                           

Email: 
[University of Bath request email]

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References

Visible links
2. http://www.bath.ac.uk/

Dear Freedom of Information,

I would like to thank you for providing me with the attached documents. It looks rather exhaustive and it is very clean!

Thank you again!

Yours sincerely,

Steve Carufel