30 October 2014 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
Research into the cost of journal subscriptions has found that the amount of money paid by HEIs to subscribe to some large publishers’ journals has risen by almost 50 per cent since 2010, the THE reports. Using FOI requests, the researchers found that “the amount paid to Oxford University Press rose by 49.2 per cent between 2010 and 2014. The amount paid to Springer rose by 36.3 per cent and the amount to Wiley by 33.5 per cent. The smallest rise – 17.4 per cent – was in subscriptions to Elsevier journals. Overall expenditure increased by 23.9 per cent”.
The extra costs comes despite the rise of Open Access publishing, and the number of articles published under the subscription model is still increasing. To find out more about how the changing publishing profile could affect the budgets of library, research office and other institutional units, and how the costs can be offset, have a look at this JISC briefing.
