So we hold the line on our prices, expand our scope of coverage every year, and are more profitable at the same time. Maybe a good model for other electronic publishers?

Oxford University Press is freezing prices:

From: Oxford Online Products [mailto:oxfordonline-noreply@ams.oup.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 6:03 PM

In light of the impact the economic crisis is having on library
budgets, Oxford University Press has given careful consideration
to the pricing of our online products for the next academic year
beginning July 1, 2009. OUP’s annual subscription increases for
online databases (this excludes journals), which covers ongoing
product investment as well as inflationary costs, have ranged on
average from 4-8% over the last several years. We have reviewed
the impact of various price increases on our customers, as well
as the results of increases on our not-for profit organization.
Oxford itself has not been immune to the current crisis.

We recognize that tightening budgets will require libraries to
make difficult choices this year, and we want to help enable
institutions maintain subscription services during this time. To
that end, Oxford is announcing that our reference and academic
monograph subscription product prices will remain at their
current levels of pricing, with no increase on July 1, 2009.
This applies to institutional subscriptions in North and South
America, and includes OUP’s reference and law subscription
products, listed below:

American National Biography Online
Oxford Biblical Studies Online
Dictionary of National Biography Online
Encyclopedia of Popular Music Online
Grove Art Online
Grove Music Online
Oxford African American Studies Online
Oxford English Dictionary Online
Oxford Islamic Studies Online
Oxford Language Dictionaries Online
Oxford Reference Online Premium, Western Civilization and Literature Collection
Oxford Scholarship Online (subscription)

Our relationship with the library community, which shares our
mission to disseminate the highest-quality scholarly material to
a broad audience, is extremely important to OUP, as is our
continued commitment to scholarship. Although we are not
increasing prices this year, we pledge to continue the robust
maintenance of our online subscription products at the level you
have come to expect from Oxford.

Now more than ever, we want to ensure that your institution is
getting the most possible from your OUP subscriptions. We are
also working on a number of programs and strategies for 2009 to
help libraries drive usage and increase discoverability of their
online holdings, and welcome your feedback and advice in the form
of a brief survey (cut+paste if hyperlink does not work)
http://www.oup.com/us/libsurvey2009. All persons who complete the
survey will be entered to be one of 10 winners who will win their
choice of the Oxford Atlas of the World or the Oxford Companion
to Food. Thank you in advance for your thoughts and your time.

Rebecca Seger
Director, Online and Library Sales
Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Email: rebecca.seger@oup.com

Generally speaking, I think the “little guys” are not nearly as greedy as the 800-pound gorillas. We can’t afford to be.

James D. Lawlor
Editor and Publisher