PhilPapers will be moving to a partial subscription model. Access to their resources from computers on campuses of institutions will be limited unless the institution pays for a subscription. The features that go behind the paywall will be phased in over time. Access to individuals from home will remain free.
Details can be found here
That’s a pretty cool idea–have those hugely expensive subscriptions, but only for the universities, free off campus…I’m impressed by how cool that is (assuming they need the money).
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Great. My tiny SLAC with a BA and 45% first gen college students, can add a $500 fee for 2 faculty members and maybe 10-20 philosophy students (1000 total) who live on campus.
Maybe pricing could factor in the size of the institution and not just the degree-granted. Oh well.
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I agree with C. that a more flexible financing arrangement might be reasonable. Not only size of institution but also endowment, tuition, etc might be taken into account. A simple measure that might work would be based on something like total library budget of the school (something a librarian might have access to…).
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The Philosophy and Religion librarian at my institution (the University of Chicago) has pointed out to me that the timing of this move is terrible for librarians with a budgetary year coming to a close and with the processing time required for new purchases/acquisitions — she has basically already spent her entire budget and will probably not be able to make their June 1 deadline regardless of whether she decides to pay for this service.
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Not quite so cool for those of us whose remuneration includes on-campus housing in lieu of salary, and who find it difficult to persuade libraries to have up-to-date subscriptions to marginal journals such as Mind and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science…(people putting up pre-prints on PhilPapers used to be my go-to solution for this.)
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thanks, everyone, for the feedback. we’re working on flexible financing models. on-campus housing is a tricky issue. but note that no-one will have access blocked any time soon. on july 1 all that will happen is that users from nonsubscribing institutions will see a prominent banner at the top of certain pages saying something along the lines of “Your institution does not subscribe to PhilPapers. Please encourage your librarian to subscribe.” perhaps we’ll find a way to continue that model indefinitely, depending on uptake. but there’s no way that philpapers can survive properly without some serious income to pay staff.
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New APPS 
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