Images

From The Chronicle of Higer Education comes an article about Cambridge University Press and its new rental program:

Will researchers pay for short-term access to journal articles? Cambridge University Press is about to find out. The publisher has just announced a rental program for articles from the more than 280 peer-reviewed journals it publishes.

“For just £3.99, $5.99 or €4.49, users are now able to read single articles online for up to 24 hours, a saving of up to 86% compared with the cost of purchasing the article,” the press said in an announcement. “After registration and payment, the reader is e-mailed a link, through which they can access and read the article in PDF format as often as they wish during the subsequent 24 hours.”

Readers may not download, print, or copy and paste the articles. That’s similar to the conditions set by DeepDyve, which also offers 24-hour, no-download access to research articles, but on a monthly subscription basis.

Simon Ross, the managing director of Cambridge’s journals program, said in an e-mail that the model might appeal to students who need an article for only a brief time. But he said it’s mostly intended to help with the problem of so-called turnaway traffic. Researchers, especially those who aren’t associated with an institution, often see only the title and abstract of a paper they’re potentially interested in. High pay-per-view charges sometimes put them off buying the full version. Mr. Ross said that the rental program gives them an option to read the full article for less money and then decide if they want to buy the text on a pay-per-view basis.

Thanks to Michel von Glahn for the link.

NO COMMENTS

The TeleRead community values your civil and thoughtful comments. We use a cache, so expect a delay. Problems? E-mail newteleread@gmail.com.