FTE and its effect on database subscription

The digital era has brought about enormous changes to the journal publishing process. Publishers are now offering journals as digital copies packaged as a database. This move has also affected the journal subscription process and publishers are now offering journals as database packages. Publishers now have to look at various journal subscription models in order to offer the so-called “best price” to their clients. Various factors are taken into account when deciding on the pricing of individual journals or packaged journals. One important factor in this instance is the full-time equivalent or FTE. Pricing now takes into account the FTE of potential subscribers. This paper attempts to explore the various definitions of FTE and its implications, if any, on database subscription.