True, but its very rare that an institution subscribes on a journal-by-journal basis. The pricing structure makes this approach ridiculously expensive and impractical. The price of a dozen or two a la carte journals will usually cost as much as a package of all the journals in that subject area (including the ones you want specifically). Some journals, like the journal Nature, are only available when you buy a massively expensive package. Individual journal subscriptions also often come in packages grouped by years; you have to buy a different set if you want a set of volumes from 1890-1940, 1940-1990 or a package that sunsets all volumes over 10 years prior.
This isn't as much a problem when you back subscription packages. The downside of purchasing this way is that when your subscription lapses, you lose all the access you had (since you don't 'own' it). Were you to go the a la carte method, you 'own' them but have to pay a $100+ 'hosting fee', per journal on a yearly basis.
The ridiculous prices to subscribe to a la carte journals is one of the primary problems, and the biggest gun that he publishers have to our head.
I think it's also worthwhile to recognize that librarians have been trying to sound the alarm on this problem for at least a decade. In 2001, Kenneth Frazier, Director of Libraries at UW-Madison, wrote an article in D-Lib Magazine where he named such journal packages the "Big Deal" and urged library administrators not to buy them.
This isn't as much a problem when you back subscription packages. The downside of purchasing this way is that when your subscription lapses, you lose all the access you had (since you don't 'own' it). Were you to go the a la carte method, you 'own' them but have to pay a $100+ 'hosting fee', per journal on a yearly basis.
The ridiculous prices to subscribe to a la carte journals is one of the primary problems, and the biggest gun that he publishers have to our head.