He is disregarding the research, for example, of Tenopir and King. The Adonis document delivery service has recorded remarkably flat usage across all articles rather than peaks and troughs. First, Friend's question is absolutely correct. Librarians talking to publishers has been a waste of time and energy. Publishers have no control over the allocation of resources to basic research which has generated the exponential increase in journal articles underlying the increases in prices.
Publishers simply respond to the expressed needs of researchers.
Talk to them. Talk to university presidents, agency heads, the White House science advisor, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, legislators, and others who guide and control research policy. Ask how have universities justified, in terms of research productivity and educational effectiveness, their impoverishment of their libraries. Talk to the government agencies who are responsible for major investments in science. Ask what happened to the 1975 recommendations of the Senate subcommittee on the National Science Foundation.