The Collection is managed in partnership with Swets, one of the world's leading subscription services companies.

Swets and ALPSP have announced the 2010 collection with a total of 824 titles making up the full set - of which 88 titles are new to the collection. (Link to Full Press Release).  Four new publishers have agreed to make titles available in 2010: IM Publications, iMedPub, Lawrence & Wishart and The Way, bringing the number of participating publishers to 48.

The ALJC also provides nine subject-specific collections:

• Archaeology & History
• Law 
• Life Sciences 
• Linguistics & Arts 
• Medicine 
• Religion & Philosophy 
• Science 
• Social Sciences 
• Technology

'Now in its seventh year, the importance of the ALJC cannot be stressed highly enough,' said Debbie Dore, Chief Commercial Officer at Swets. 'It provides libraries and consortia with the most straightforward, flexible and cost effective way to acquire content from a wide palette of highly regarded publishers. Swets is delighted with the continued growth of the ALJC and proud of its role in the collection's success.'

Why was the ALJC created?

Large publishers are able to offer to academic libraries what is sometimes called 'The Big Deal' - access to complete collections of journals for a single negotiated rate. Studies have demonstrated that such deals can often be highly beneficial to users, often substantially increasing the usage of previously non-subscribed titles. However, a publisher with only a handful of journals is not in a position to offer such a package, and the additional cost of 'Big Deals' from larger publishers can reduce the budget available to purchase other publishers' journals; the result is that libraries' ability to purchase high quality journals from smaller publishers is being steadily eroded. This problem is further increased by sometimes above-inflation price increases, expanded research funding and therefore more journal articles being published, and shrinking library budgets. All publishers are seeing a steady decline in subscriptions, but often those who lose out most in the consortia environment are small but well respected (and reasonably priced) learned societies and other not-for-profit publishers.

In 2003 the Association, working with members and in association with John Cox Associates, developed the ALPSP Learned Journal Collection, a combined package of journals provided by individual publisher members in a cooperative uniform package. After calling for tenders, Swets was appointed to sell and manage the Collection on members' behalf to academic and corporate libraries and consortia internationally.  The ALJC has gone from strength to strength and in 2008 is recognised as an important player in the consortia market after achieved impressive market penetration.

The ALJC is open only to ALPSP members and operates on the following  basic principles:

• A standard contract is signed between Swets and participating publishers, a copy of which can be provided on request
• Journals are included in the Full Collection and in the appropriate Sub-collections
• The ALJC is offered to libraries under a single standard contract
• Revenues earned from contracts are shared on an agreed basis
• Access to content through 'Swets Online Content (SWOC)' is provided without additional costs

For further information contact Ian Russell or the ALJC team at Swets

Testimonials

'There can be no doubt about how valuable such a development could be for a journals market increasingly dominated by large - and consolidating - player. This is just what trade associations are for.'
Nick Dempsey, EPS

'… a real advantage for the smaller publishers'
Judy Luther, Informed Strategies

'Kudos to ALPSP for this achievement'
Ann Okerson, Yale University Library

'A very welcome development for both publishers and libraries.'
Serials e-News