Project MUSE's New Pricing Model: A Case Study in Collaboration

Project MUSE®, an online collection of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and the arts, undertook an extensive revision of its pricing and subscription model in 2003, the first since the project's inception in 1995. A collaborative effort of MUSE staff, industry consultants, participating libraries, and publishers produced a new pricing scheme for 2005 based on two factors: peer institutions grouped by Carnegie Class and then divided into quadrants based on their usage. This article discusses the background and implementation of the new business model and next steps.