Duke U. Press Director Addresses Librarians on MUSE Withdrawal

-- Library Journal, 10/14/2004

In a detailed "open letter" to librarians, posted on Yale University's Liblicense-L electronic discussion list, Duke University Press director Steve Cohn explained the press's recent decision to remove 18 of its journals from Project MUSE, the popular e-journal publisher run in collaboration by the libraries and press at Johns Hopkins University. The bottom line, Cohn wrote, was the eventual erosion of subscription revenues for Duke's most popular journals included in Project MUSE, and that revenue largely subsidizes the press's publishing activities. "Even though our revenues from Project MUSE have increased steadily and substantially as MUSE has grown in subscribership," Cohn explained, "we envisioned a fairly dramatic change in that trend line over the coming years." Cohn said that revenues from Project MUSE had been previously been making up for losses in direct subscriptions, but that eventually "the erosion" of subscriptions would turn into a landslide. Even with the removal of 18 of its journals from Project MUSE, Duke likely will remain one of the project's largest contributors. A new Duke contract with MUSE is currently in negotiation and Cohn said he expected as many as nine journals to remain. The rest are now available directly from the press.