ABSTRACT
Given the shifting paradigm to access from ownership and the competing demands on the materials budgets from new services within academic libraries, price studies which use a “unit cost” to compare journal titles within a given discipline are becoming a more important component of the review process as libraries determine which serial titles to add and which to delete. Several studies are available from societies, and some librarians have designed their own. Longitudinal studies, which show trends in “unit cost” over time are especially helpful, and several of these are discussed.
