A c t i o n f o r L i b r a r i e s
— A p r i l 2 0 0 2
OCLC FirstSearch Service
Pricing to Change on July 1
By James Speed Hensinger
OCLC has announced its annual price changes for the OCLC FirstSearch service,
effective July 1. Although subscription rates for some non-OCLC subscriptions will
decrease, most FirstSearch users will pay higher costs after July 1.
As of July 1, OCLC will implement the following per-search prices in FirstSearch:
- The price of per-search searches will rise from $.67 to $.85 for OCLC members
(OCLC Cataloging and ILL users only). For non-OCLC members (all non-cataloging
and non-ILL users) the price will
increase from $.77 to $1. Libraries are encouraged to purchase blocks of searches
now, before the new price increases go into effect on July 1.
- A full-text article purchased with five per-search searches will, therefore, increase
from $3.35 to $4.25 for members (OCLC Cataloging and ILL users only) and
from $3.85 to $5 for nonmembers.
- Searches will continue to expire two years following the date of a library's last
purchase of searches.
OCLC has indicated that subscription prices to OCLC packages and individual databases
via FirstSearch will increase an average of approximately 6 percent. Stand-alone
subscriptions to WorldCat will be adjusted to be more in line with group pricing for the
database.
For most non-OCLC content in FirstSearch, OCLC is lowering prices at the higher access
levels. Some third-party databases will show significant percentage price reductions
where OCLC has been able to negotiate more favorable contract terms. Some rates for
non-OCLC content databases, however, will increase in the 1 percent-to-6 percent range.
Databases with increases greater than 6 percent include: ABI/INFORM, Business and
Industry (new and renewing subscriptions), Business Dateline, Chemical Abstracts
nonsubscriber, DataTimes, H.W. Wilson Select Plus, INSPEC, Periodical Abstracts A&I
with full text and Wilson Packages 1 & 2 (1-2 simultaneous user levels).
Public libraries that are first-time subscribers may purchase selected database subscriptions
at discounted prices during 2002. These databases are: WorldCat, OCLC NetFirst, PAIS
International, Alternative Press Index, ATLAS: ATLA Serials database, MDX Health Digest
and RILM Abstracts of Music Literature.
For more information, contact BCR's Jim Hensinger (jhensing@bcr.org)
or Karen Graham (kgraham@bcr.org).
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