======================================================================== Subject: PRICING NEWSLETTER 8 Date: Mon, 25 Sep 89 20:52 EST ISSN: pending NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO. 8 -- SEPTEMBER 24, 1989 FROM THE EDITOR, Marcia Tuttle REPORT OF MEETING HELD AUGUST 24, 1989, PARIS, FRANCE, TO DISCUSS ISSUES RELATED TO SERIALS PRICING, Karen Muller CHARLESTON CONFERENCE: NOVEMBER 9-11, 1989 A LIGHTHEARTED LOOK AT ALA: PART 2, Ken Kirkland REPORT ON OTHER ALA MEETINGS, Christian Boissonnas NEW AWARD? Patricia Rice HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS, Chuck Hamaker SERIALS CANCELLED AT NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY, Material from Patricia Berger FROM THE EDITOR Marcia Tuttle "You've created a monster!" cried Karen Muller, Executive Director of ALCTS/LAMA. Karen's office is responsible for mailing the paper edi- tion of the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES, including filling claims and back orders. She manages both ALA divisions, neither of which has a second-in-command at the moment, and the popularity of the newsletter demands more staff time and more money than are available. For these reasons, we are forced to impose a charge on back issues of the paper edition only, effective October 1, 1989: $5.00 per issue, per copy, prepaid. As the inevitable subscription price (paper edition only) looms in January, we hope all those subscribers will consider changing to an electronic edition. Some of you are in libraries where other persons receive the BITNET or DataLinx edition. If you don't use e-mail your- self, will you investigate getting a paper printout from the electron- ic edition subscriber? And BITNET/DataLinx subscribers, please feel free to forward or otherwise share your copies with staff members and others who are concerned about serials prices. We have finally succeeded in getting the newsletter on ALANET. Begin- ning with no. 7 it is available to all ALANET subscribers. Judging by your continued response and support, the monster we have created is a beneficial monster -- as long as it's electronic. REPORT OF MEETING HELD AUGUST 24, 1989, PARIS, FRANCE, TO DISCUSS ISSUES RELATED TO SERIALS PRICING Karen Muller, Executive Director, Association of Library Collections and Technical Services/Library Administration and Management Associ- ation, BITNET U19466@UICVM In attendance: Patricia W. Berger, National Institute of Standards and Technology and ALA President (presiding); Judy McDermott, Library of Congress; Rolf Griebel, Universitatsbibliothek, Erlangen; Ulrich Mon- tag, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munchen; Herman Koestler, Zentral- bibliothek, Zurich; Duane Webster, Association of Research Libraries; Sharon Hogan, Louisiana State University Library; Karen Muller, Ameri- can Library Association; Thomas J. Galvin, American Library Associa- tion; Patricia Molholt, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY. Following introductions, Herr Montag summarized recent activities of the IFLA Section on Acquisition and Exchange in the area of pricing concerns. Preliminary results of the work had been presented during the Section's open meeting on August 22, with the general finding that the budgets of most libraries in Germany and English-speaking coun- tries are not responding to price increases. Mrs. Berger reviewed the documents that had been distributed and the reasons the meeting had been arranged. Henry H. Barschall, a retired professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, had published an article ("The Cost-Effectiveness of Physics Journals") in PHYSICS TODAY, a journal of the American Institute of Physics. The article is the summary of a more detailed study published in the BUL- LETIN OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS. The article includes anal- ysis of both commercially published journals, such as those published by Gordon & Breach, and society publications, including those of the American Institute of Physics. Because Dr. Barschall is on the publi- cations board of the American Institute of Physics and the article compares publications, Gordon & Breach believes that it constitutes "comparative advertising" and may constitute "trade libel" under the laws of West Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries. Gor- don & Breach have filed suits in West Germany, and are threatening suits in the U.S., Switzerland, Japan, and France. According to correspondence shared with the American Library Associa- tion, Gordon & Breach charge that there are methodological deficien- cies inherent in the study and that the study is biased against com- mercial firms. The American Institute of Physics had offered Gordon & Breach the opportunity to publish criticisms, but Gordon & Breach had not done so. It was reported that American librarians doing research in the same area had been threatened by Gordon & Breach. Herr Montag reported that librarians in Germany have been conducting studies analyzing price increases and are aware of the Barschall study. However, he was not aware of the lawsuits and, with Herr Grie- bel, stressed that information about which court the suits have been filed in and the actual texts of the filings will be important. It is necessary to know the exact grounds for the suits in order to under- stand how to react. Mr. Webster reported that the lawyers for the American Institute of Physics are Covington and Burling, in Washington DC, with Richard Meserve as the lead attorney on the case. At this point the law firm believes that publicity on the matter could be detrimental, but is seeking sources for expert witnesses, particularly in the countries where suits have been filed, or will be filed, to be called in as the case develops. Although the consensus was that the suit challenged values of intel- lectual discourse, no concerted action should be undertaken at this time. The various groups represented would continue gathering informa- tion. Herr Koestler would seek the text of the filing for any Swiss suit, and Herr Montag would seek the text of the filing for the West German suit; both would continue to gather information in their re- spective countries. The American Library Association, through the joint Association for Library Collections & Technical Services/Library Administration and Management Association (ALCTS/LAMA) office, would coordinate information in the United States. It was agreed that the Society for Scholarly Publishing should also be included in further discussions. Dr. Galvin noted that the September 1989 issue of AMERICAN LIBRARIES would carry a report of the suit. Mr. Webster announced that the Asso- ciation of Research Libraries hoped to be able to set up an Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing in order to be able to study the causal factors in the shift of scholarly publishing from professional societies to commerical firms. CHARLESTON CONFERENCE: NOVEMBER 9-11, 1989 From material sent by the College of Charleston Office of Profes- sional and Community Services This year's conference on Issues in Book and Serial Acquisition seems to be named "Rememberance of Things Past." Tentative speakers are: Pieter Bolman (Pergamon Press), Doug Duchin (Blackwell North America), Michael Keller (Yale University), Bob Mastejulia (Baker & Taylor), Barbara Meyers (Meyers Consulting), Sandra Paul (SKP Associates), Ed- win Shelock (Royal Society of Chemistry), and Barbara Winters (Virgin- ia Commonwealth University), with others TBA. Registration actually begins at 6:30 p.m., on Wednesday, November 8, at the Mills House Hotel, the conference headquarters. A new feature this year is a dinner/dance cruise on the "Spirit of Charleston" on Friday night (the menus are yummy!). Registration fee is $95.00; the dinner dance is an extra $30.00. Registration deadline is November 1. For more information about the program, travel, and accommodations, contact Katina Strauch, Head, Collection Development & Charleston Con- ference Coordinator, College of Charleston Libraries, Charleston SC 29424; or, (803) 792-8020. [The registration material was sent out before Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston and did severe damage to the city. I have learned from Mike Markwith that Katina and her family are safe. They left Charleston last Thursday morning and spent the next nights at a motel just north of Columbia SC (still in the path of the storm, as it happened). They were to try to return to Charleston Saturday September 22. What all this means for the conference remains to be seen. I'll try to have something from Katina in the next issue. -Ed.] A LIGHTHEARTED LOOK AT ALA: PART 2 Kenneth Kirkland, DePaul University Library, BITNET: LIBKLK@DEPAUL FAXON PRICING SEMINAR. (Information previously covered in the newslet- ter not repeated here. -Ed.) "The Faxon Planning Report 1990," ISSN 1043-1187, was distributed and speaks for itself. A note on the verso of the title page explains that it "forms the merger of: The Faxon Collection Development Series: Library Profiles (ISSN: 0897-6562) and The Faxon Collection Development Series: Publisher Profiles (ISSN: 0897-6570)." The Report is full of tables breaking down figures on the differences between actual average budget increases 1989 and 1990 and increases requested. These are subdivided by types of libraries, as are the results of the questionnaires about librarians' decisions for adding and cancelling titles, as well as attitudes and opinions of both librarians and publishers. One particularly interesting point is the publishers' overall projection for 1990: average price increases of 6 to 8 percent for both European and U.S. titles. (These increases refer to the base prices only and do not take into account foreign exchange rates or page increases.) Publishers say they expect somewhat fewer additional volumes for 1990 than there were in 1989. The Report finds "...the majority of librarians believe that their ability to provide access to information is more important than increasing col- lections." RTSD/TECHNICAL SERVICES COSTS COMMITTEE SERIALS AUTOMATION INTEREST GROUP. Snowbirds from the North voiced amazement at being in "an exot- ic city" and speaking at 9:00 a.m. (At least one native Texas listener felt the day and time somewhat strange, but not the locale.) Sharon Cline McKay, Director of Library Services at EBSCO, spoke first. Her subject was "Interfacing Between Local Automated Systems and Serial Subscription Agents." In automation, "nothing lasts forev- er." One should always be planning for upgrades or replacements. The eight roles of players building an interface system were defined as: 1) initiator, 2) controller, 3) reactor, 4) beneficiary, 5) end user, 6) seller, 7) buyer, 8) intermediary. Summary: automation is a good thing. Anita Branin, Associate Director of MULS (Minnesota Union List of Se- rials) and Document Delivery and MINITEX, and Richard Green, Consult- ing Data Base Specialist from OCLC, carried out the second half of the session. Their theme was "Interfacing Between Local Automated Systems and OCLC Holdings Data." Branin confided, "I thought that at least for a week people would call up and say, `What a nice system!' But no, they were as demanding as ever." "Re-keying data is becoming a part of life." Some of the major questions are: 1) What is appropriate/useful data in a NATIONAL system? 2) What is appropriate/useful data in a LOCAL system? 3) How to upload. 4) How to maintain -- tapeloading is preferred in Minnesota. 5) What capabilities are there? 6) What will these databases be in the future? What combination of national and local data? Will they be CD-ROM or fiche? 7) What will the cost be? Richard Green noted that the HOLDINGS STATEMENT is one of the messiest areas now. We MUST have standards. Automation came first, standards came later (or "maybe they'll come later???"). Cataloging standards have been around for a hundred years, so it is about time for holdings standards to be firmly established. We got closer with Z39.42, now superseded by Z39.44. "We got caught in this." The MARC format is inching towards a "final draft." All this has been "like being given a tossed salad and asked to reconstruct the head of lettuce." OCLC is awaiting the onset of the New Online System before flipping holdings format to Z39.44. Listeners were advised to get the new MARC holdings format standards and study them, especially the 85x fields (pattern) and the 86x fields (enumeration). "We are in a pioneer stage -- every- thing we need is NOT in place." "Lots of confusion out there." Mary Ann Van Cura, Hamline University School of Law, new chair of the group, provided the summary: "Progress Towards a Multiple Data Base of Holdings Data" and emphasized the formation of a committee to promul- gate the same. RTSD/SERIALS SECTION COMMITTEE ON SERIALS STANDARDS. Marjorie Bloss, from the Center for Research Libraries, called for looking at holdings statements on the international level. "We can no longer turn our backs and pretend the others do not exist." There is a draft proposal out from IFLA to be voted on. The summary level should be agreed upon first, with the detailed holdings level to be worked out later. Basic requirements so far are: 1) Title must be there (or ISSN), 2) Location (institution), 3) Sub-location (departmental holding library), 4) Call number, 5) Date of report, 6) Extent of holdings: caption, enumera- tion, chronology, and extent note. There is a punctuation biggie -- a different use of the semi-colon. The IFLA draft would use ";" to sepa- rate levels of parts, NOT "non-gap gaps." Nolan Pope, Associate Director for Automation at the University of Wisconsin -Madison Library, discussed his experience in developing standards. A NISO (National Information and Standards Organization) standard takes an average of five years to be approved. Pope sees the need for movement towards a consensus and the impossibility of result- ing in a perfect system for everyone. NISO does want input. Jean Ham- rick at the University of Texas, Austin, is a voting member who can be contacted. One can write to ask about membership: NISO Z39; P.O. Box 1056; Bethesda MD 28017. Joe Santusuosso of Faxon talked about "Implementation of Standards for Electronic Data Interchange by Vendors." He observed that the realiza- tion of standards should improve services, reduce costs, create prod- uct differentiation, protect market positions, and meet requirements imposed by trading partners. An illustration of the "trading partner imposition" is that GM will invoice electronically only, and therefore will not deal with a textile mill that requests a paper invoice. Im- provement should be fostered by a more stable environment in which software will not change as frequently. Reasons why some vendors may choose NOT to implement standards: 1) To maintain product differentia- tion, 2) To maintain market position, 3) Fear of migration, 4) Use of proprietary standards, 5) Excessive cost, 6) Required by trading part- ner, 7) Timing. Essentials bearing on the implementation of standards are 1) Standards expertise as found in NISO, SISAC (Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee), ISO (International Standards Organisa- tion), ALA, and X.12; 2) Organization -- a single group responsible, broad and early involvement, and a review process; 3) Corporate com- mitment -- support from the top down. THESE WERE VOICES CRYING IMPORTANT MESSAGES IN THE WILDERNESS! ALL SHOULD TAKE HEED! RTSD/SS "THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL." Douglas R. White from the School of Social Science at the University of California, Irvine, spoke on "Ed- iting an Electronic Journal: Experience with WORLD CULTURES." White's journal, WORLD CULTURES, published on floppy diskettes, began in 1985 and is still fairly unique. White is interested in the technology bias, observing that the Third World can't afford high technology, but several Third World libraries do subscribe because the floppy is cheap. Publication occurs first, then peer review takes place, with editing and re-issue. Issues may be sent back to the publisher for updating at a small charge. The University of California defines WORLD CULTURES as a "non-publication." "You won't get tenure" through pub- lishing in this journal. However, White opines, "Like a small warm- blooded mammal in the age of electronic dinosaurs, the future of flex- ible and rapidly evolving desktop electronic journals may hold more of a future than we currently envision." Edward Kurdyla, Jr., Director of Electronic Publication and Informa- tion Delivery Division of OCLC, discussed "The State and Future of Electronic Journals." Kurdyla praised the Z39.59 1988 electronic manu- script standard for mark-up as a most important development. It does for publishing what the MARC standard did for bibliographic records. Electronic copying, however, provides for the greatest potential dan- ger. ABUSE of electronic copying, that is, is the danger. Publishers and librarians must be vigilant together, must sit down and talk about the problem. REPORT ON OTHER ALA MEETINGS Christian Boissonnas, Cornell Univ. Library, BITNET: CBY@CORNELLC [Christian kept a diary of his experience in Dallas, and I wish we had room to print it all, especially the menus. Here's a sample: at l'En- trecote -- Wild Boar Sausage with Truffled Alsatian Noodles and Wild Berries, Young Curled Endives and Watercress with Sauteed Lamb Sweet- breads, Grilled Loin of Rabbit and Roasted Leg Stuffed with Liver and Pecans, Raspberry Pie with Cinnamon Souffle. -Ed.] RTSD ACQUISITIONS COMMITTEE. We reviewed the recently held Berkeley Regional Acquisitions Institute; it was a huge success. We discussed the forthcoming Northeast Regional Institute. We will hold a program in Chicago next year on Funding Future Acquisitions. I don't know who is in charge or what it will cover. We talked about the proposal to make CMDC (Collection Management and Development Committee) an RTSD Section. The RTSD Resources Section Policy and Planning Committee recommended the formation of a Collec- tion Management and Development Section and an Acquisitions Section to replace the existing committees. The Serials and Resources sections would be abolished and the Acquisitions Section would include the former Serials Section Acquisitions Committee. Any stray catalogers orphaned by this would be recovered by CCS. We voted to support all of this, not because it made sense, but because we should become a sec- tion if CMDC became one. The Acquisitions Committee currently is working on three guides. These deal with Financial Management, Out-of-Print Materials, and Preserva- tion in Acquisitions Processing. Joe Barker is heading an effort to update the Third World Bookdealers. There are jurisdictional issues involving CMDC (selection guides), SS (Directory of Subscription Agents), further confused by the ALA Publi- cations Division which wants SS to collapse TWB into its directory. Next came a great report from the Liaison to the Serials Section Ac- quisitions Committee. It seems that this committee has decided to develop a guide on vendor evaluation. Prudently, they decided to limit the scope of this thing, at least initially, to periodical vendors. Before proceeding, however, they felt they needed to identify a list of relevant terms to define. So far they have 266 terms and no defini- tions. The LAMA-SASS Acquisitions Committee (if you're counting, this is the third acquisitions committee within ALA; there are also 5 relevant discussion groups that I know of) has on tap: For Midwinter, an open discussion meeting on ethics; for Summer 1990, one on Creative Fund Accounting; for 1991, one on the vendor/library interface. I will be happy to go to the one on Creative Fund Accounting and push NOTIS. The whole world deserves to know how creative it can be. Now, here is a potentially big issue. The RTSD RS Education Committee has been charged, they don't exactly know by whom, to develop a docu- ment on basic competencies for acquisitions librarians, and did the Acquisitions Committee want to participate? Well, I could see my col- leagues becoming nervous, so they spent a considerable amount of time discussing if there should be an Acquisitions Education Committee at the Section level or a subcommittee on education of this committee. I did not see how this was relevant to the question posed by the RS Edu- cation Committee, but by that time it was already 5:00 p.m., and I still had to speak. So, I lost interest. I said above that there are five discussion groups relevant to Acqui- sitions. By now there may be six, or seven. Some potential ALA bureau- crat talked about a potential Heads of Acquisitions Discussion Group. Then, it was my turn. I spoke about the Clearinghouse on Prices pro- posal and got a near unanimous expression of support to go ahead and form a steering committee, and to keep it out of ALA. Dissenting was Joe Barker. He's interested only if we're going to gather data on foreign expenditures as well. He'll come around. RTSD TECHNICAL SERVICES COMMITTEE PROGRAM ON COSTS, TECHNOLOGY AND UTILITIES. Paul Mosher started the program by reviewing the history of networks. "They are fundamental to our existence" and "the relation- ship between libraries and networks is as natural as that between apples and pie." He also made the following points: - The escalation of journal costs forces networking and resource- sharing. - Networking of cataloging information results in lower processing costs. - Networks redistribute costs, not save money. - If we continue to withhold the utilities (read: RLIN or OCLC) end- product from end-users we will succeed in getting our presidents and university librarians to cut them out of the library. Peter Spyers-Duran, Dean of Libraries at Wayne State University, taught me that only 6.5 percent of libraries have automated systems of any kind, because: - Software costs are too high and they are increasing. - The technology currently available requires such large investments that libraries are left with limited options. They only do what they did before, only in computerized fashion. He also showed some ARL statistics which supposedly prove that budgets for automation have increased by the precise amount by which budgets for personnel and materials have decreased. It looked plausible, but I would want to see more analysis before agreeing. Ward Shaw, Executive Director of the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, said that the issue of cost and technologies is difficult to deal with because it is changing all the time. Then he told us about CARL. Bonnie Juergens, Interim Executive Director of AMIGOS, pointed out that the cost to libraries of belonging to and getting OCLC products and services was less than 3 percent of their budgets. She hypothe- sized that a librarian who tried to cut out that expenditure would not stay in the saddle very long, so necessary and integrated in the life of libraries had they become. She became a little too evangelical about the "networking nineties," which made a perfect opening for.... Jim Michalko, President of the Research Libraries Group, Inc., who brought us down to earth. First, he said, we should distinguish be- tween cost and price. The two are not synonyms, and people forget that. He made six points, two each about costs, technology, and utili- ties: Costs 1. Utilities have enormous fixed costs before anyone does a single search. These represent 30 percent of RLIN's budget. The mix of costs is changing, but they are still essentially fixed. Communi- cations costs are increasing but computer support costs are de- creasing by a comparable amount. 2. We are creating a larger and larger pool of fixed costs by repli- cating the national network at various local and regional levels. He is not sure we can afford it. Technology 1. Increases in computing power are changing the local landscape. Bringing all these futuristic products to clients is not going to happen without fundamental issues being addressed, like, who pays? 2. The investment in standards, hardware, and software is going to be very high. So high, in fact, that we can't afford to do it wrong. Utilities (Data resources) 1. The value of a central data resource has been put into question. Some say that the electronic interstate system, by making it possible to shop for data, will make central data resources obso- lete. He doesn't agree with that. The utilities are valuable, not only for cataloging, but also as a shared resource. 2. Is the library community willing to pay the price for a central data resource when it is much higher, as it will be, when used as a shared resource? NEW AWARD? Patricia Rice, Pennsylvania State University, BITNET: POR@PSULIAS I think ALA should institute a new award: The Worst Frequency State- ment of the Year Award. Have you seen the frequency statement of NEW KOREA? I quote: "NEW KOREA...is published weekly except the 5th Thurs- day of any month and the Thursday (other than the 5th Thursday) near- est: New Year's Day; Martin Luther King's Birthday; Washington's Birthday; Easter Sunday; Memorial Day; Independence Day; Labor Day; Columbus Day; Veterance [sic] Day; Thanksgiving Day; and Christmas Day....(Really, I'm not making this up!) HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University Library, BITNET: NOTCAH@LSUVM Many newsletter readers will remember with a fair amount of dismay the decision VCH Publishers made to force all orders for American librar- ies through their Deerfield Beach FL U.S. distribution office and the concomitant problems raised for receipt, claiming, and payment. Well, what goes around.... VCH has announced in a letter to vendors with their 1990 price list that from now on subscribers to ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE and ADVANCED MATERIALS will receive their copies via air mail direct from Germany, "resulting in faster delivery to the subscriber." Because that is one of the points originally raised in complaining about the Deerfield Beach distribution system (actually stuff was air- freighted to New York and then maybe to Deerfield Beach, and then to libraries??? or, was it from Germany to New York to American subscrib- ers?), it's interesting to see this admission of what we knew all along: air mail directly from Europe was faster than handling anything with lots of hands in the pie. SERIALS CANCELLED AT NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY From material sent by Patricia Berger, ALA President and Director, Information Resources & Services, National Institute of Standards and Technology The President of the American Library Association is not exempt from the need to cancel serials. Pat Berger has sent a "Memorandum for All NIST Employees" from Acting Director Raymond G. Kammer, dated August 31, 1989, which describes incredibly high serials price increases and the procedure taken by Berger and the staff of the Research Informa- tion Center (RIC) to reduce the library's financial obligation: can- celling 200 subscriptions for 1989. Kammer then says: Unfortunately, the amount "saved" from this exercise did not offset the price increases for those journals which were renewed in 1989. Therefore, the RIC staff undertook a title-by-title analysis of the use of "high-ticket" journals. RIC staff examined data collected over the last 6 years regarding the numbers and titles of such jour- nals checked out by NIST staff and associates, the numbers and ti- tles of journals lent to outside institutions (particularly institu- tions which lend to RIC), the numbers and titles of journals photo- copied, and the numbers and titles of journals perused on the RIC premises. "Low Journal Use" was defined as 24 or fewer uses OF ANY KIND during the last 6 years.... As a result of that analysis, 77 more titles will be dropped in 1990, for a "saving" of $36.4K. Kammer, in support of this effort, asks NIST staff and other users not to use NIST funds OF ANY KIND to enter new subscriptions for these titles. In addition, he continues, "page charges and/or reprint pay- ments for articles authored by NIST staff or NIST associates which will be published in any of these journals after 1989 will not be paid for from NIST funds." The list of cancelled titles attached to the memo is interesting. Thirty-three Pergamon journals averaging $324.03 were cancelled, as well as 15 from Elsevier averaging $303.60, 10 from Gordon & Breach averaging $1,620.80, and 19 from 18 other publishers averaging $262.00. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Readers of the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES are encouraged to share the information in the newsletter by electronic or paper meth- ods. We would appreciate credit if you quote from the newsletter. ====================================================================== The NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES is published by the American Library Association's Association of Library Collections and Technical Services, Publisher/Vendor-Library Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Serials Pricing Issues. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, BITNET: TUTTLE@UNC. BITNET; Faxon's DataLinx: TUTTLE; ALANET: ALA0348; Paper mail: Serials Department, C.B. #3938 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3938. Other committee members are: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Mary Elizabeth Clack (Harvard Uni- versity), Jerry Curtis (Consultant), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), Robert Houbeck (University of Michigan). ====================================================================== ******ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE******* ======================================================================== Subject: Pricing Newsletter 9 Date: Tue, 26 Sep 89 14:42 EST ISSN: pending NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO. 9 -- SEPTEMBER 26, 1989 Editor: Marcia Tuttle INTERVIEW WITH KATINA STRAUCH So many of you have sent messages and called asking about Katina Strauch and Hurricane Hugo's impact on the Charleston Conference that I called this morning and interviewed her for the newsletter. I also asked about Bobbie Carlson at the Medical University of South Carolina. Katina did not know anything about Bobbie, but she did know that the Medical Uni- versity has power. The conference is still on!! Meeting Street is fine; the Mills House is fine; the College of Charleston is fine. The old houses and buildings in the historical district survived the storm well; "they've been through it before." The greatest loss in Charleston was the live oaks. King Street is a mess. The TV pictures of National Guardsmen are from King Street, where all the glass front stores that weren't boarded up were destroyed. Katina says they really didn't want too many people coming to Charleston, and this was their way of control- ling registration. On last Thursday morning Katina left Charleston with (reported in this order): "both computers, both hard disks, all my floppies, a change of clothes, the kids, and Bruce." Before leaving they called their par- ends and their literary agent (to tell him they were taking the hard disks). They went west of Columbia toa motel in Leesville, where they had rain and high winds, but only a 15-minute loss of power. It was scary looking at the news reports of the damage to Charleston. When the family returned on Saturday they found that news reports were greatly exaggerated. Katina has strong thoughts about this. Because the eye of the hurricane crossed over Charleston, they got wind dam- age, not water damage. The areas to the north, inlcuding the barrier islands, were in the "bad quadrant" (that's my term, not Katina's!) and were hard hit by the water surge. Barrier islands to the south were hardly damaged at all. The storm also hit one and a half to two hours before high tide, which greatly lessened damage. Katina's house lost one window pane. The palmetto tree and the dying live oak tree she thought would be in her dining room are still standing. Her telephone is one of three on The Citidel Campus that work. The still have no power, but "Charleston is coming back to life." The Citadel is giving its staff free water, ice, and hot food. The Strauchs arrive at the mess hall at 9, 1, and 5 each day for meals. They, in turn, are helping The Citadel clean up. The National Guard is being housed at The Citadel, so there's no looting there. Katina says you can hardly sleep at night for the helicopters coming and going with personnel and supplies for Charleston residents. Some of you know Katina's very old VW Beetle. A car had hit it, and it was being repaired. They didn't go get it before leaving, thinking its loss (covered by insurance) might be a good thing. The garage had called Katina just before I spoke to her, saying the car is fixed and ready to be picked up. She hopes it still has its full tank of gas. Gasoline is at a premium right now, as the news reports have said. At the College of Charleston, classes will resume Monday, with stu- dents returning Sunday night. New construction suffered the greatest losses, especially roofing, but the older buildings came through just fine. The library lost two windows and one book! It still has no electricity. At the library only the main telephone number is working so far. Katina has authorized me to tell you her home phone number, so here it is: (803) 723-3536. To summarize the situation, Katina says, "It's bad, but people are rising to the occasion and the conference is definitely on!" ******ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE********* ======================================================================== Subject: Pricing Newsletter 10 Date: Mon, 02 Oct 89 20:48 EST ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO. 10 -- SEPTEMBER 30, 1989 Editor: Marcia Tuttle FROM THE EDITOR, Marcia Tuttle USBE FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY, Agnes M. Griffin NOTES FROM IFLA IN PARIS, Barbara von Wahlde 1990 BLACKWELL NORTH AMERICA SCHOLARSHIP AWARD, Frank D'Andraia HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS, Chuck Hamaker INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ADDICTIONS: AN EXCHANGE OF LETTERS, Daniel H. Jones INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FOR EXCHANGE OF MACHINE READA- BLE SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS FROM THE EDITOR Marcia Tuttle Did everybody notice the ISSN??? Feedback is wonderful, positive, negative, or neutral. Nobody disa- greed with my statement in issue no. 7 that a newsletter such as this one should not be refereed. A few of you even sent messages supporting that position. Peter Graham at Rutgers (BITNET: GRAHAM@PISCES) also sees the other side: "If you WERE to send out items for refereeing, it could certainly be a relatively painless and speedy process." I agree, at least about "painless," but I guess my point is that I don't ever expect this newsletter to become a journal, and refereeing is for journals. Peter also got into the sticky question of citations to the newslet- ter. "Your ISSN comment prompts me to ask: how do you suggest we cite references to the journal, especially specific articles? I've already had this problem with the Kermit newsletter. What page is Hamaker on? Might be an interesting side discussion. I don't think it's covered in the MLA Style Sheet." He doesn't have a fundamental suggestion to make yet, but adds: "Line numbers could work if they were always present, but even when on the original document transmitting or displaying systems don't always present them. One option might be to use the traditional form for encyclopedia references, e.g. Hamaker, Charles, NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES (September, 1989; no. 7), s.v. "Hamaker's Haymakers." "This form would depend on standard headings being available in the electronic journal. I don't know of activity in this area. It's a much broader issue than for librarians alone; someone with the right con- tacts might well ask the MLA and University of Chicago style sheet people to deal with the disciplines and provide guidance." John James (BITNET: JOHN.R.JAMES@MAC.DARTMOUTH.EDU) sends this infor- mation about dissemination of the newsletter at Dartmouth: "Not every- one at Dartmouth uses BITNET. This is our paperless method for han- dling the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES. The BITNET copy is saved on the Library's File Server. Staff can access the Fileserver and read the newsletter online and, if desired, print portions of the text. The complete backfile resides on the Fileserver." Thanks, John. I'm impressed! I want to recommend to you, especially the librarians, Deana Astle's article, "Suicide Squeeze: The Escalating Cost of Scholarly Journals," in the July-August 1989 issue of ACADEME (vol. 75, no. 4, pp. 13-17). The content of the article is similar to Deana's recent article, "The Scholarly Journal: Whence or Wither" in THE JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC LI- BRARIANSHIP (vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 151-56), but the ACADEME version is directed especially toward faculty members. Members of the American Association of University Professors will have received the article as a benefit of membership and may be ready to listen and learn more about their local situation. That issue of ACADEME features The Elec- tronic Library and includes artlcles by Timothy Weiskel, James Rice, Richard M. Dougherty, and Ruth W. Clinefelter and Jack E. Hibbs. USBE FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY Memo (undated) from Agnes M. Griffin, President, USBE Board The Board of Directors of the Universal Serials and Book Exchange (USBE), Inc. announces that as of September 12, 1989, a petition for bankruptcy has been filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. This action was taken by full and unanimous vote of the Board in consulta- tion with both legal and fiscal advisors. Originally located in the Library of Congress, USBE began as a post- war program to rebuild war-torn libraries overseas. From this concept of libraries helping libraries, USBE emerged as a network dedicated to the redistribution of periodicals, books and other scholarly materi- als. In this capacity, it provided a unique service to the library community for over 40 years. While membership in USBE has remained relatively consistent for the past several years, the purchase of single copies and backfiles of serials, the mainstay of its income, has declined steadily. Staff cuts were made and new marketing strategies were attempted. In addition, new ventures in fundraising and new roles for USBE were explored. Despite these actions and efforts, no relief to the declining revenues was found. The Board attributes the declining revenues to several changing pat- terns in the world of libraries. The success of resource sharing, the advent of electronic information, increasing reliance on microformats, and library budget pressures are today's library realities. Whatever the cause or combination of causes, we have regretfully closed the doors on 41 years of service to the library and information community. The Board is aware of the inconvenience, and, for some, the financial loss this closing represents. The Board and USBE staff have made every effort to accommodate libraries' needs over the years, and we regret that we are no longer in a position to do so. At this point all assets and liabilities are under the control of the Court. Members who have deposit accounts should receive a notice from the trustee appointed by the Court within 30 - 45 days. The notice will include instructions for claiming any funds that may be owed. Any member who does not re- ceive such a notice may contact the Court directly. On behalf of the Board of Trustees of USBE, I want to express appreci- ation for the support you have given in the past. We will appreciate your continuing understanding as we go through this legal process. NOTES FROM IFLA IN PARIS Barbara von Wahlde, SUNY Buffalo. Editors of library journals sponsored a program on publishing of li- brary periodicals. However, two of the panel members were from scien- tific publishing firms and compared and contrasted library publishing with scientific publishing. The program, chaired by Russell Bowden, The Library Association, focused on four areas: 1) mechanisms for fixing prices and calculating profit margins; 2) the role of differen- tial pricing (individual, geographic, etc.); 3) access and permis- sions; and 4) the intended purpose (the audience for professional library journals). The panel consisted of Jan-Willem Dijkstra and P.S. H. Bolman, representatives of the European offices of Elsevier and Pergamon, respectively; Evelyn Shaevel, the ALA manager of publica- tions; Donald G. Davis, Jr., the University of Texas Press, Austin, and editor of THE JOURNAL OF LIBRARY HISTORY; Maurice Line, formerly Director General of the British Library Document Supply Centre and currently editor of ALEXANDRIA; and Bar U. Nwafor, Director of Librar- ies of the University of Jos, Nigeria. About one hundred persons at- tended the session. Bolman, from Pergamon, is a former physics professor and worked for a number of years at Elsevier before moving recently to Pergamon. He personalized much of his scientific overview by focusing on physics. For instance, physics articles are growing at a yearly rate of 4 per- cent. The publisher notices an erosion of subscriptions of about 3 to 5 percent annually. He blames this on resource sharing. (As an editor- ial aside, I think it is economic; if resource sharing truly took off, subscriptions would drop much more drastically.) The publisher wants and needs to retain the same profit margins and levels. Publishing costs are about 90 percent fixed and 10 percent variable in terms of the number of copies printed and distributed (the percentage could shift to 80/20 with large print runs). To retain "market share" and profit, publishers need to increase prices by 8 percent a year, re- gardless of inflation or exchange rate fluctuations. This is not true in publishing library journals. Journals with ads are another source of income (library journals have relatively few). While costs are going up, the market is shrinking. The speaker had published an inter- nal paper in 1976 on this subject identifying the publishing spiral as it was predictable even then. Fixed and variable costs relate to dif- ferential pricing especially the geographic element. Learned societies operate with their fixed costs covered and deal only with variable costs. This situation permits societies to have cheaper rates. Bolman did not see much difference between the commercial, learned society, and scholarly publishers in terms of specific types of costs, as they affect all of them. He identified one "leak" in the system as photo- copying. Re-publication is also a concern of commercial publishers. He used the Adonis Project as an example of a way to investigate this concern. Editorial policies of commercial publishers are helped by professionals in the field. Dijkstra, from Elsevier, focused on some of the differences found in the library market and scientific publishing. All titles lose money in the first 3 to 5 years of publication. Publishers look at "programs," not individual titles. Elsevier does not have differential pricing. In the case of library publications, there are a small number of journal subscribers, few ads are placed, and sale of back volumes is not a large source of income. The research and development office of the firm is considering individual articles, current awareness service, and secondary information sources as new areas for exploration. Fac- tors affecting pricing are costs associated with the journal and the revenues which can be broken down as follows: for costs - 1) editorial fees and expenses; 2) production; 3) fulfillment and distribution; 4) marketing; 5) administrative overhead; 6) discounts to subscription agents. The revenues include: 1) subscriptions; 2) advertising; 3) reprints, and 4) sale of back volumes. Shaevel, from ALA, said there was not a single method for setting prices; it depends on the individual journal manager. Most editors are volunteers; major costs are production costs; revenues include ads, subscriptions, and subsidies from member dues. A number of journals are profitable. Except for the very biggest, overhead for journals is covered through member dues. Representing scholarly publishing, Davis focused on university presses and their journal programs, including a very limited number of library science titles. He encouraged more research on library journals. Davis suggested more publishing by university presses but acknowledged that they lack venture capital. Maurice Line thought that the number of journals has been increasing but that the average number of articles per journal is declining in the library field. He advocates holding imaginative sessions on solu- tions. He is the editor of a new journal, ALEXANDRIA, which needs 300 subscriptions. It is being priced to recover costs in 3 years. He thinks new library journals may be favored by selectors. He would prefer more specialization in journals, better quality control, more short articles and summaries, more review journals, less repetition, more conference papers in journals, and more overarching journals. The last speaker, Mr. Nwafor, summarized problems and difficulties for Third World libraries. They are severely affected by major economic problems. Foreign subscriptions can be handled well enough when they have the money, but their major problem, with minimal bibliographic control, is finding local journals. During the question and answer session Bolman said Pergamon needs 8-13 percent profit (which is what their money might earn in interest). They pay "honoraria" plus other editorial expenses. They have to pay interest of about 5 percent on the journal, as well, as an "invest- ment" for new titles. He gave an example of physics journals reducing page charges but raising journal prices by 200 percent or more. Dijkstra said that word processing improves quality and speed but does not reduce costs (it stabilizes them). Paper costs have been increas- ing annually by 7 - 8 percent. Sometimes it is still cheaper to rekey copy from word processing when standards are poor. Another session of interest and relevance to serials pricing was the paper given by Malcolm Getz, Director of Vanderbilt University Librar- ies. He discussed the library's commitment to an extensive journal collection and focused on the future of library acquisitions. Vander- bilt spends a large portion of its budget on serials, but as informa- tion explodes, the library is procuring a smaller portion of it. Van- derbilt has a commitment to acquiring materials in electronic format. His predictions: funding will not grow as fast as publishing; his library will collect a broad core, but depth only in a limited set of subjects. We should expect libraries to face competition in providing information to our users. Competition could include: service on high speed national and international networks, personally owned electronic archives which compete with the local research library (he cited pos- sibly CD's for doctors, lawyers, economists, etc.). 1990 BLACKWELL NORTH AMERICA SCHOLARSHIP AWARD Frank D'Andraia, University of California, Riverside, BITNET: DANDRAIA@UCRVMS. Since 1976 Blackwell North America has contributed a $1,000 scholar- ship to a U.S. or Canadian library school in honor of the author or authors of the outstanding monograph or original paper in the field of acquisitions, collection development, and related areas of resources development in libraries. The 1989 recipient of the award was Freder- ick C. Lynden for "Prices of Foreign Library Materials: A Report," COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES 49 (1988): 217-31. Other recipients have included Herbert S. White for his article, "Publishers, Libraries and Costs of Journal Subscriptions in Times of Funding Retrenchment," (1977) and Ann Okerson for "Periodical Prices: A History and Discus- sion," (1987). Nomination forms may be obtained from Frank D'Andraia, University of California, Riverside (DANDRAIA@UCRVMS). Nomination forms, as well as supporting documentation -- a letter stating the reason for the nomi- nation -- should be received by the BN/A Scholarship Committee Chair by 1 December 1989. Nominations should be sent to: Stanley P. Hodge, Chair, BN/A Scholarship Award Committee, 5000 Hamilton Lane, Muncie IN 47304. HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University Library, BITNET: NOTCAH@LSUVM. The July/August issue of FAX LETTER (Faxon's newsletter for customers) has projections for 1990 prices. What it does say is a pretty good estimate of dollar increases from some publishers. What it doesn't say is in some ways even more interesting. For Pergamon Press, the news- letter quotes from a letter to Faxon from Pergamon, calling attention to the fact that Pergamon titles will, once again, have a lower list price to the U.S. than to the rest of the world for 1990. The FAX LETTER does note, however, "At this time we do not know what the aver- age percentage increase will be for these 'lower' rates. It is possi- ble, however, that the increases could be significant." At LSU, we checked 163 Pergamon titles received here, comparing the 1989 price list with the 1990 price list. The overall increase rate for this list of titles was 15.6 percent! The reason for the increase seems to have less to do with actual costs to Pergamon of production, or even real growth in size than with an attempt to close the differ- ential rate gap created when Pergamon switched from worldwide pricing in dollars when the dollar was strong, to worldwide pricing in Deutsch Marks (DM) when the dollar began its decline worldwide. This automat- ically-created differential created the gap (in this instance favora- ble to U.S. libraries) that is now the "excuse" for this incredible price increase. In spite of Brian Cox's warning to NASIG members at Dennison, Ohio, three years ago that this difference in price meant Pergamon was "losing" money by selling at "lower" prices to the U.S. market, all this really proves is that when any differential price is tolerated on a worldwide basis, those upper level prices become price leaders. And sooner or later the "gap" is narrowed by raising the lower level prices. As the U.S. and England are where printing and editorial work is done for these titles, "inflation" is not an excuse for the price increases. Currency manipulation and perhaps recent Maxwell purchases are more likely culprits. By the way, TIAA/CREF holds a fair number of shares in Maxwell Commun- ications Inc., Pearson (the Longman Group), Elsevier, Wolters-Kluwer, and Reed. So some of us may have a voice, unrecognized until now, in what these companies do. Thanks to Bill Schenck, Library of Congress, for calling this to our attention. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ADDICTIONS: AN EXCHANGE OF LETTERS Daniel H. Jones, The Univeristy of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, BITNET: (Danny sent the Pricing Newsletter copies of the following correspond- ence and gave his permission to print his letters.) August 1, 1989 Iris Accordino, Director Journals and Encyclopedias Division Marcel Dekker, Inc. 270 Madison Avenue New York NY 10016 Madam: I am writing to express our serious concern about two Dekker journals to which we subscribe. As they are both substantially delayed we are not currently prepared to renew our subscriptions for 1990. DRUG METABOLISM REVIEWS - This title was supposed to publish two vol- umes of four issues each in 1989 (vols. 20-21), for which we paid $598.00. Thus far only volume 20, no. 1 has been published, which we received April 25, 1989. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ADDICTIONS -- This title is supposed to be a monthly publication for which we paid $625 in 1989. We received the first issue of the 1989 volume (vol. 24) on July 21. I recognize it is the editor's responsibility to see that manuscripts are delivered to the publisher in a timely manner in order to publish a journal on a regular schedule. I also believe it is the publisher's responsibility to subscribers to see that the editor meets publication deadlines. In 1988 our library cancelled 14 percent of our subscrip- tions and these two titles managed to survive the cancellation review process. In 1990 we will likely face a similar cancellation review and one important review criterion will be a journal's ability to meet its publication schedule. We will be monitoring these journals to be sure they meet our expectations before we decide to continue subscribing. Sincerely, Daniel H. Jones Assistant Library Director for Collection Development xc: Editor, DRUG METABOLISM REVIEWS Editor, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ADDICTIONS ---------- Danny received a letter from Marcel Dekker dated August 10, 1989. It says, in part: I can see from your letter that you are conversant with the fact that most publication problems stem from the uneven flow of manu- scripts. Interestingly enough, for both journals there has been a slow period, and now both are deluged with papers. Accordingly, I can provide you with the publication schedules for each of the two journals.... (These schedules showed both journals becoming current by February 1990. -Ed.) We very much value your patronage, and I hope that this information will reassure you of our commitment to radically improving the time- liness of each journal.... I would like to thank you for the initiative you took in writing to us. We appreciate your efforts and the opportunity to show you our future plans. ---------- September 7, 1989 Marcel Dekker, President Marcel Dekker Inc. 270 Madison Avenue New York NY 10016 Dear Mr. Dekker: I have just been informed that the INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE AD- DICTIONS will double its frequency and more than double its price from $625 for 1989 to $1350 for 1990. This frequency change is very differ- ent from the one you outlined in your letter to me of August 10 and I am very surprised. This is obviously a troubled journal; it did not produce a single issue until July of this year. Given this publication pattern I cannot responsibly authorize advanced payment of such a large amount and I think you should reconsider your pricing for this title. Biweekly publication is too ambitious for a journal which obvi- ously has had trouble meeting monthly publication deadlines. We have not authorized our agent to renew this subscription at this rate. I strongly urge that you freeze the frequency and subscription price at 1989 levels and let this journal prove its worth for a few years before trying to increase either the frequency or price. Sincerely yours, Daniel H. Jones Assistant Library Directgor for Collection Development Danny has not yet received a reply to his second letter, but he prom- ises to share it when it arrives. INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FOR EXCHANGE OF MACHINE READABLE SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS, From material sent by Edwin A. Shelock, Chairman, Joint Serials Committee, Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers/The Publishers Association (Serial Publishers Executive) For some time an international group of publishers and subscription agents, the International Working Party on Magnetic Media Transfer, has been working on a Handbook of Standards to be used in the exchange of information between publishers and subscription agents. Members of the Joint Serials Committee and the Association of Subscription Agents (both UK groups) from the UK, the US, the Netherlands, and Japan have developed standards from their experiences in exchanging data electronically. The working party consists of representatives of five agents: Faxon, EBSCO, Blackwell, Swets, and ReadMore; and five publishers: Pergamon, Royal Society of Chemistry, Taylor and Francis, Plenum, and Kluwer. It meets three times a year, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the UK Serials Group Conference, and the Special Libraries Association. Edwin Shelock has chaired the group since its inception, but he will retire soon. Brian Cox of Pergamon will be the next Chair. A draft of the Handbook was issued in June 1989. The Introduction states: "The primary objective of this document is to publish the standards which have been agreed by a wide cross section of companies operating in the industry, and to encourage their use by clearly ex- plaining the recommended contents and format." Contents are (besides the Introduction): Objectives of Data Transfer Standards; Transaction Types for which Standards are Defined (subdivided into Publisher to Subscription Agent and Subscription Agent to Publisher); and two appendixes. Minutes of the group's meetings and copies of the handbook are availa- ble upon request, from: E.A. Shelock, Chairman, Joint Serials Commit- tee, Royal Society of Chemistry, The Distribution Centre, Blackhorse Road, Letchworth, Herts, SG6 1HN, England. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Readers of the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES are encouraged to share the information in the newsletter by electronic or paper methods. We would appreciate credit if you quote from the newsletter. ====================================================================== The NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES is published as news is available by the American Library Association's Association of Library Collections and Technical Services, Publisher/Vendor-Library Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Serials Pricing Issues. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, BITNET: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET; Faxon's DataLinx: TUTTLE; ALANET: ALA0348; Paper mail: Serials Department, C.B. #3938 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599- 3938. Committee members are: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Mary Elizabeth Clack (Harvard University), Jerry Curtis (Consultant), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), Robert Houbeck (Univer- sity of Michigan), and Marcia Tuttle. Back issues of the newsletter are available electronically free of charge through BITNET from the editor and in paper from ALCTS, American Library Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago IL 60611. Paper issues are priced at $5.00 per issue, per copy, prepaid. Billing charge: $2.00, plus postage. ====================================================================== ******ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE******* ======================================================================== Subject: Pricing Newsletter 11 Date: Mon, 16 Oct 89 21:47 EST ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO. 11 -- OCTOBER 15, 1989 Editor: Marcia Tuttle FROM THE EDITOR, Marcia Tuttle ELSEVIER RESPONSE TO ARL SERIALS PRICES REPORT, AND ARL'S REPLY, Letters from Karen Hunter and Duane Webster AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY, AD HOC LIBRARY COMMITTEE, James Rovnyak RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY PRICING, Peter S. Graham SETTING UP A MAIL FORWARDING GROUP ON BITNET, Mary McLaren HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS, Chuck Hamaker DOWNLOADING THE NEWSLETTER FROM A VAX TO A PC, Kerry Kresse FROM THE EDITOR Marcia Tuttle Following up on suggestions made at ALA, we have in this issue two sets of instructions for handling your newsletter after you receive it on BITNET. Mary McLaren forwards her copy to other persons on campus, and Kerry Kresse downloads hers to her pc through the mainframe on her campus. Those of you who are e-mail experts, feel free to skip over these instructions, but some of us still need help! Barbara von Wahlde sent a copy of a paper given at IFLA by Rolf Grie- bel and Ulrich Montag, "The International Problem of Differential Pricing for Research Libraries." The men discuss the results, as of mid-May 1989, of their English-language questionnaire distributed to 500 libraries in 78 countries, in April. French and Spanish versions were to be sent out last summer. This preliminary report covers both monographs and periodicals, and both individual/institutional and geographical pricing differentials. Libraries varied in their response to differential pricing, including the degree of difference they will accept without protest and the actions they take to obtain materials at a lower price. This "internal use only" paper is, even based on partial results, full of information and guidance for libraries to use in dealing with this issue. The investigators advocate such strategies as "buying around" and exchanges with libraries in country of origin of affected titles, but their strongest recommendation is for librar- ians to "unite effectively at national and international levels to present their matters of concern," continuing and broadening the dia- log with scientific journal publishers. In closing, they state, "It has been the aim of this project of the IFLA Section of Acquisition and Exchange to initiate this unification among the world's librari- ans." The final report, planned for 1990, "should become the basis for negotiations of IFLA with publishers and their associations. ELSEVIER RESPONSE TO ARL SERIALS PRICES REPORT, AND ARL'S REPLY Karen Hunter, Vice President and Assistant to the Chairman, Elsevier Science Publishers, and Duane Webster, Executive Director, Associa- tion of Research Libraries, letters reprinted by permission Early in August directors of ARL member libraries received a memo from Karen Hunter, Vice President and Assistant to the Chairman, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. It reads as follows: As you would expect, the recent ARL report on serials pricing -- and the heated discussion of it at ALA -- are of concern to Elsevier management. As my attached letter to Duane Webster tries to explain, the report draws false conclusions based upon misleading and incom- plete information. This only exacerbates an already difficult situa- tion and potentially polarizes parties who should be working togeth- er. In that respect, if ARL was seeking a fair and accurate assess- ment of the present situation, it has not been well-served by its consultants. I invite any of you who would like to discuss either the report or other serials issues -- present or future -- with responsive and responsible publishers to contact me.... The letter: July 21, 1989 Mr. Duane E. Webster Executive Director Association of Research Libraries 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Dear Mr. Webster: Thank you for sending me a copy of the REPORT OF THE ARL SERIALS PRICES PROJECT. Having now had the opportunity to study it, I would like to make certain observations. We understand that you undertook a serious effort to obtain better insight into actual publishing costs, compared with the steady rise in subscription rates over the last decade. This letter is not the most appropriate forum to analyze or refute in detail the specific figures in the study. Nor can we do so without the underlying data; indeed, we do not even know the Elsevier titles involved. However, we consider it useful to highlight some of the flaws in both the methodology and conclusions of the Economic Consulting Services (ECS) study. 1. Costs ECS looks at five cost categories: (1) "editing labor" (which seems to be limited to academic editors' fees); (2) typesetting; (3) printing labor; (4) paper; and (5) postage. There are many major cost categories omitted, including: copyediting, subscription ful- fillment, marketing (including international promotion and sales), financial and administrative overhead, research and development, and international editorial management. These costs far exceed the 5% allocated to "Other" and are critical parts of the journal publish- ing process. 2. Cost increases Cost increases result not only from inflation or, as with paper, cyclical commodity shortages. There are other dynamics at work, particularly during the period 1973-87, when the speed and intensity of research and the communication of research results were impacted by computers. This was a period where many improvements in service were required to remain competitive, such as the use of internation- al air delivery and the automation of editorial offices. These serv- ice improvements cost money over and above any inflationary increas- es. There are other structural cost changes unrelated to inflation. For example, over the past decade there has been a severe decline in the subsidies provided by universities toward the maintenance of edito- rial offices. Publishers must make up the difference. In addition, as the volume of manuscripts being submitted increases and is in- creasingly international, publishers must invest in improved quality control on a worldwide basis. These permanent changes in the way business is conducted create cost increases in excess of inflation. 3. Journal types In order to have a meaningful analysis, the components of the analy- sis should be consistent. If one is talking about "journals," then the reference is to collections of refereed primary articles. If the measure for Elsevier is the cost structure of the Netherlands, then the titles measured should have their principal costs incurred in the Netherlands. As indicated above, we have not been given the opportunity to review which Elsevier titles were included in the study. However, four Elsevier titles are mentioned in Appendix C. It is significant that two are sections of the Excerpta Medica secondary (abstract) service and two are professional (non-academic-library) newsletters. Fur- ther, the Excerpta Medica titles are produced in Ireland, one news- letter in the U.S. and the other in the U.K. These four publications clearly have no relationship to the prices or costs of primary journals in the Netherlands and it raises ques- tions about the validity of the whole list. There is no evidence that these place and type distinctions were considered by ECS. 4. Exchange Rates It is not clear how ECS handled the effects of currency fluctua- tions. The impression is given that by taking a period of increase and decrease, the effect of the rate fluctuations is neutralized. Without better information of what ECS actually did, it is difficult to do more than register non-specific objection. We are not persuad- ed by the text as presented -- and by the facts as we have experi- enced them -- that the effect is as neutral over the long term as ECS would have one believe. As to the issue of establishing one worldwide price in local curren- cy, the ECS inference that this is not in the libraries' interest is totally unfounded. This is the fairest long-term approach. The al- ternative would be to have a "home" and "foreign" rate -- the dual- pricing practice so regularly criticized by libraries. 5. Circulation levels Of greatest concern, ECS barely touches the issue of circulation levels. Virtually every publisher of scientific research journals -- whether society or commercial -- has experienced a steady decline in the subscription levels of its major journals over the past 15 or more years. As the pressure to publish an ever increasing number of articles has led to larger journals (more pages) and to the forma- tion of new journals, the market has been faced with far more mate- rial than it can purchase. The result is the well-documented process of cancellation and of only purchasing very selected new titles. The remaining subscriptions must bear an increased portion of the jour- nal's cost. In summary, ECS made certain limited assumptions about costs and the factors affecting cost increases. Based upon those assumptions, it created a model, observed certain results and jumped to a character- ization of those results as proof of a hypothesis. In Elsevier's case, ECS found a 3.0% annual gap from 1973-87 between price and inflation-related cost increases. We cannot verify the accuracy of this figure, given the absence of data and the complexity of the situation mentioned above. ECS sees that gap and labels it increased profits. We see the gap and say that, disregarding any possible inaccuracies, we know it to be ex- plained by increases in non-inflation based costs together with declining circulation levels, not profit increases. Elsevier has consistently conducted itself as an honest and ethical member of the international scientific publishing community. It has earned the respect and trust of thousands of leading scientists around the world. We feel the criticism encouraged by you and this report is not justified. We fear that to proceed along at least some of the paths recommended in this study will not further the libraries' mission of enhancing research communication. Instead, I would like to pose the question of how the report can help all of us to find solutions in order to fulfill the need of scientists while recognizing the constraints in library budgets. We invite any and all of your members who have an honest desire to work with publishers for better service to the research community to contact us for further discussion. Sincerely, Karen Hunter Vice President and Assistant to the Chairman Webster's response (copies sent to all ARL member directors): August 7, 1989 Ms. Karen Hunter Elsevier Science Publishers 655 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10010 Dear Ms. Hunter: Thank you for your letter of July 21. It is a carefully considered response to the recent REPORT OF THE ARL SERIALS PRICES PROJECT. I would like both to respond to the specific technical issues you raise, and to address several of the broader issues related to the scholarly communication process. I have also forwarded your letter to Economic Consulting Services (ECS). I will follow, in as close order as possible, the points raised in your letter. COSTS AND COST INCREASES. ECS makes very open and direct reference in its report to the difficulties encountered in developing the cost indexes. Both ECS and ARL would welcome specific cost data from commercial publishers, as there is no evidence so far that the cost elements mentioned in your letter increased at higher levels than the major elements measured by ECS. Your comments regarding cost increase are too general for me to provide detailed response, par- ticularly since they lack specific cost data. We can appreciate that the change in the relationship with universities affected your busi- ness practices; again, relevant data is needed to assess the impact of this change. The serials report shows clearly that numerous changes in the ways scholarly communication is handled have occurred and continue to occur. These changes merit further study. It may be that some changes in the structure of scholarly communication could actually cover costs for efficient publishers. JOURNAL TYPES. The list of titles used in the study was mailed to you on July 18. This information may or may not shed further light on the study's findings and on the research library perspective in general. Your points regarding journal types are, I believe, not relevant to this issue, as all the titles mentioned fit ARL's defi- nition of serials. The list is a random sample representative of titles available for purchase by our members. In fact, the four titles you highlight were explicitely described as dropped from the study. Finally, since presumably cost is a major incentive for pro- ducing serials in countries other than the Netherlands, inclusion of such titles should probably result in lower costs to your company, and therefore be to your company's advantage. EXCHANGE RATES. On the subject of exchange rates, the study's data determines that prices increased faster than publishers' costs, both when the U.S. dollar was weak and when it was strong. Figures 3 and 5 in the report confirm this phenomenon. Finally, on this point, ECS agrees that one worldwide price is acceptable, and notes that your interpretation of their perspective differs from what they intended to imply. CIRCULATION LEVELS. As you may know, we attempted to obtain circula- tion data, and in most cases found it to be a well kept secret. Therefore, I am puzzled by your comments in this area. A simple solution would be for publishers to provide the data. Also, your remark that "the pressure to publish an ever increasing number of articles has led to larger journals (more pages) and to the forma- tion of new journals," defines what seems to us to be a major part of the problem. We believe these trends can be influenced over time, and we would welcome the opportunity to address such issues jointly. SUMMARY. I am pleased that you acknowledge the ECS study's finding that a significant gap occurs annually between publishers' prices and identifiable cost increases. Two commercial publishers have informed me that gaps between cost and price increases have no rela- tionship to level of profit. ARL wishes to be neither cynical nor naive, so, we will remain skeptical on that point until explicit data can clarify it. Neither ARL nor ECS has made any assessments of the ethical nature of any commercial publisher. Simply put, we believe commercial pub- lishers are entitled to compete in the market and to earn for them- selves an appropriate profit. Similarly, libraries, as consumers, are entitled to influence the market through whatever legal means are available to them. Libraries will continue to focus on ensuring the distribution of important scholarly and scientific information in as cost-effective manner as possible. Finally, it must be said that the ECS study is only one of many that contributes [sic] to our understanding of the serials situation. The ARL report describes that understanding and recommends ways in which the library and scholarly communities can contribute to a more ef- fective and affordable scholarly communication process. ARL and its members will be important partners in this effort and, of course, welcome any serious attempts by publishers to work with us. ARL is setting up an Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing to ad- dress these issues. Through this new project, our members can re- spond as a community to your invitation to work with publishers to find solutions to the current difficulties in this aspect of schol- arly communication. Sincerely, Duane E. Webster Executive Director AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY, AD HOC LIBRARY COMMITTEE James Rovnyak, Department of Mathematics, Mathematics-Astronomy Building, University of Virginia, Charlottesville VA 22903; BIT- NET: JLR5M@VIRGINIA. The American Mathematical Society recently named an Ad Hoc Library Committee to study library issues that affect the mathematics research community. The committee consists of four mathematicians (Richard A. Askey, Robert S. Doran, James Rovnyak - Chair, George Seligman) and four librarians (Nancy D. Anderson, Dorothy McGarry, Mary Ann South- ern, John W. Weigel II). The objective of the committee is to assemble information which will assist the mathematics community and librarians to build and maintain quality mathematics libraries into the future. Of primary concern are issues that involve the viability or effectiveness of the mathematics library as a research tool. Major areas of focus are (1) basic facts about mathematics libraries, (2) cost issues, (3) the information- seeking habits of mathematicians, and (4) new technologies. The com- mittee will be pleased to receive comment from any concerned groups or individuals. RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY PRICING Peter S. Graham, Rutgers University; BITNET: GRAHAM@PISCES Excerpt from the Autumn, 1989 issue of RENAISSANCE NEWS & NOTES, the newsletter of the Renaissance Society of America (publisher of the journal RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY): the dues are to be increased .... Regular memberships will increase to $45 .... Institutional subscriptions will rise to $55 ....We have made a conscientious decision not to raise institutional fees quite as high as the market will bear. It is this practice, we understand, that has persuaded some heads of collections to "deacquisition" humanities journals, a practice we must all profoundly regret. We hope library enrollments will grow with this pricing policy, and look forward to enhanced subscription figures to result from the summer's recruitment efforts .... SETTING UP A MAIL FORWARDING GROUP ON BITNET Mary McLaren, Head of Acquisitions, University of Kentucky Librar- ies, Lexington KY 40506. (606) 257-2543; BITNET: MCLAREN@UKCC.UKY. EDU. I have found that within the University of Kentucky Libraries the interest in serials pricing extends well beyond the Acquisitions and the Collection Development departments. In order to share the NEWSLET- TER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES with faculty in a number of departments, I offered to route the NEWSLETTER to them in either the paper or the electronic format, according to each recipient's personal preference. Routing the paper copy posed no real problem, except that I first had to learn how to get the NEWSLETTER to print out in one uninterrupted continuous printout. (The "screen print" option was definitely not an acceptable print mode!) Forwarding the electronic copy via BITNET was newer ground, however, in that I had never before set up a "group" to whom my mail should be forwarded. This procedure, once learned, proved to be equally easy to manipulate. The BITNET procedure described below should work at any IBM site using a CMS operating system. If your E-mail runs on the Rice University mail program, this procedure should definitely work for you. The first procedure is to set up a routing list via the NAMES command. If you have BITNET documentation, refer to the NAMES section. If you do not have such, you may wish to follow these brief "quick and dirty" instructions: 1. Log on to your system. 2. Type in the NAMES command. 3. Enter information on each individual to whom you want to route mail. (Fill in one screen per person.) You must enter a Nickname, a Userid, and a Node for each person. The remaining fields are optional. 4. Save the entry to your NAMES file by pressing the F4 (Save) key. 5. To add the next entry, first clear all the fields by pressing the F2 key (Empty Entry). Now fill in the information for the next person. Repeat as often as necessary. 6. When you are finished adding the personal entries, the next step is to create an entry for your NEWSLETTER distribution list. Do this by entering a nickname for the list itself. (I call mine NEWSLETTER.) 7. Type the nickname of each person on your routing list into the LIST field, entering one space between each nickname. 8. Be sure to save this entry with F4 (Save) just as you did for the personal entries. 9. Exit the screen with F3 (Quit). When you receive your next issue of the NEWSLETTER, you will be all set up to forward it electronically to the colleagues listed under your distribution list's nickname. 1. When you are in your MAIL menu, place the cursor on the item you wish to forward and press F6 (Forward). 2. At the TO: prompt, enter your distribution list's nickname. 3. At YOUR NAME: enter your name (optional). 4. You may at this point enter a free text message if you wish. 5. When ready to send, press F5 (Send). 6. A message will appear asking you again if you are ready to send it. Press F5 once more to confirm. Our system gives a little series of beeps as the file is being trans- mitted. You will get the message "OUTGOING MAIL LOGGED IN...." after the transmissions have all been completed. (I usually add myself to my distribution lists so I can check to see if the files have been trans- mitted correctly.) 7. Exit this procedure with F3 (Quit). If you added yourself to the distribution list, a copy of what you have just sent out should appear on your next mail menu, and all the people listed on your distribution list should have received their electronic copy of the NEWSLETTER, too! Names can be added, deleted, and revised as necessary by bringing up the appropriate file(s) through the NAMES nickname command. For additional clarification on the procedure, please feel free to phone or E-mail me at the address above. These brief instructions have been adapted from INTRODUCTION TO BIT- NET, VM/CMS VERSION: A USERS GUIDE TO ELECTRONIC MAIL, by James R. Gerlund, University Computing Services, Computer Center, State Univer- sity of New York at Buffalo, July 22, 1987. Modified at the University of Kentucky Computing Center by Alex Zekulin, September 23, 1988. (c) Copyright 1987 SUNY at Buffalo; (c) Copyright 1986 Rice University. Copying is by permission of SUNY at Buffalo and Rice University. HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University, BITNET: NOTCAH@LSUVM. TIME magazine, October 9, 1989. "The Secret in the Stacks: How the Library of Congress hid Pentagon Spending" notes that 84 million dol- lars was laundered through the Library of Congress for the Defense Department. DOD wanted to hire contractors and consultants without going through the competitive bid process required by law. Since LC did not have the same requirement, the money went to LC accounts, and consultants were hired, etc. for DOD. The library kept 15 percent of the funds as their cut, or about 12.6 million dollars. Peter R. Young of the Faxon Institute has written the "Periodicals Prices 1987-1989 Update" for THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN. A preprint is available by contacting Faxon. Young notes that Sci-Tech journals average 4.5 times the average cost of Humanities and Social Science journals, but some Humanities and Social Science titles increased in price last year at unusually high rates, i.e., Psychology, 16.8 per- cent; Economic History, 14.6 percent; Philosophy, 11 percent; outrank- ing some science areas. An especially significant letter was sent to our Serials Department October 2, 1989, from Walter R. Tschinkel, President of the North American Section of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI). They publish INSECTES SOCIAUX through Masson Publish- ers in Paris. Because of various problems, they are considering sever- ing the society's relationship with Masson and engaging another pub- lisher. Bids in hand "would result in library subscriptions costing 30 - 40 percent less" than at present. The problem is that Masson owns copyright to the title, INSECTES SOCIAUX. Dr. Tschinkel asks if li- braries would be willing to change their subscriptions from INSECTES SOCIAUX to the new journal. The IUSSI's editor and papers normally submitted to the journal would be withdrawn from Masson. The decision to move to a non-commercial publisher rests in part on the willingness of libraries to make this change. Dr. Tschinkel asks for libraries to write him or call (904) 644-4489 if they have any questions. Let's let him know that this action would be supported by the library community. His address: Department of Biological Science, Florida State Universi- ty, Tallahassee FL 32306-3050. DOWNLOADING THE NEWSLETTER FROM A VAX TO A PC Kerry Kresse, Physics Library, University of Wisconsin - Madison; BITNET: KRESSE@WISCMACC. GENTLE READER: These directions for downloading are used at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin -- Madison. We are on a Vax VMS system, and I use Procomm version 2.4.2. Essential to the use of these directions are the basic prompts that our e-mail system provides. Those who use the Vax for e-mail only have a $$ prompt once online to the Vax. (Contrast this to those who use it for other purposes; they have a single $ prompt.) Also, once in e-mail, the prompt that we see is: EMail>. I am no computer whiz, but if you cannot get these directions to work, please feel free to contact me on e-mail or by phone (608) 262-9500. I also recommend your local computing center as a first resource. GOOD LUCK! 1. At the $$ prompt, type SET TERMINAL/PAGE=0 (0 = zero; if you are already in e-mail, type EXIT to get to the $$ prompt.) 2. At the $$ prompt, type EMAIL to get back into e-mail. (By setting this terminal parameter, you temporarily get rid of the "Press RETURN for More" prompt that usually appears at the bottom of the screen. Also, the e-mail message will scroll through to the end with- out stopping.) 3. Go to the directory where you have the messages you wish to down- load, and list the directory. (I like to put the files that I want to download into a separate e-mail directory.) 4. Before you download, you must open the "log." Check the bottom right of the screen on Procomm, and you should see the highlighted phrase, "log closed." Hit to open the log. When the log is open, whatever comes up on the screen will be sent to your pc. 5. At this point, Procomm prompts you for the file name where you want the downloaded files to go. If you simply hit , they will be sent to a file called "PROCOMM.LOG" in your Procomm directory. I like to send them to a file in my own WordPerfect 5.0 directory (located on my c:\ directory on the hard disk) called c:\wp50\log. You must specify the proper path (the c:\wp50\ part) or Procomm will not send the files. Sending your files to WordPerfect right away has the advantage that you don't then have to move the file to your WordPerfect directo- ry later on. Then hit a . The bottom right message should now say, "log open." 6. Now "read" the messages that you want to download. As the message is scrolling by, it is being entered into the log. 7. When you are through "reading" the files you want to download, you must close the log. Do this by hitting again. The bottom right message should read "log closed." THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. If you do not close the log, you will not be able to access the file(s) you've downloaded. 8. It probably would be a good idea not to delete the messages till you're sure that they made it safely to your pc. 9. At this point, exit e-mail, then Procomm, head into WordPerfect and edit the file as you would any other. The "business part" of downloading is your communications software. If you use Smartcom or another software program, the principle is the same even if commands and/or procedures vary. Similarly, if you do not have WordPerfect 5.0, but another word processing software such as WordStar, the difference is in how to open and edit the file. With other software programs you may have to read up on how to transfer ASCII files. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Readers of the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES are encouraged to share the information in the newsletter by electronic or paper methods. We would appreciate credit if you quote from the newsletter. ====================================================================== The NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES (ISSN: 1046-3410) is pub- lished as news is available by the American Library Association's Association of Library Collections and Technical Services, Publisher/ Vendor-Library Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Serials Pricing Issues. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, BITNET: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET; Faxon's DataLinx: TUTTLE; ALANET: ALA0348; Paper mail: Serials Department, C.B. #3938 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3938. Committee members are: Deana Astle (Clem- son University), Mary Elizabeth Clack (Harvard University), Jerry Curtis (Consultant), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), Robert Houbeck (University of Michigan), and Marcia Tuttle. EBSCONET customers may receive the newsletter in paper format from EBSCO. Back issues of the newsletter are available electronically free of charge through BITNET from the editor and in paper from ALCTS, American Li- brary Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago IL 60611. Paper issues are priced at $5.00 per issue, per copy, prepaid. Billing charge: $2.00, plus postage. ====================================================================== ******ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE******* ======================================================================== Subject: Pricing Newsletter 12 Date: Sun, 05 Nov 89 17:03 EST ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NUMBER 12 -- NOVEMBER 5, 1989 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS FROM THE EDITOR, Marcia Tuttle ARTICLES TO LOOK FOR, Chuck Hamaker NEW POLICY AT NSF (AND AN HONORARY DEGREE FOR MAXWELL), Mike Renshaw THOUGHTS ON READING THE HUNTER/WEBSTER LETTERS IN ISSUE NO. 11, Lelde Gilman WHEN THE EARTH MOVED, SO DID TECHNICAL SERVICES, Tia Gozzi MEANWHILE, FROM OVER IN BERKELEY...., Gary Lawrence LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF PHYSICS TODAY, Larry Lucas HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS, Chuck Hamaker RESPONSE FROM MARCEL DEKKER, Daniel Jones FROM THE EDITOR Marcia Tuttle We've got news about the northern California earthquake in this issue. With the electronic communication we have today, somehow this seems like old news, even though it was less than three weeks ago. Vicky Reich (Stanford University) and I began "corresponding" the day after the earthquake and have continued as conditions at her library changed. She reported that she was able to use BITNET only four hours after the earthquake! She and others in the area have said repeatedly how much they have been comforted by the e-mail messages coming in from all over the world. Vicky and I spoke by telephone one week after the earthquake and she said several things that don't appear in Tia Gozzi's report. At that time the staff was really still in shock, but in good spirits and working together to clean up whatever they could. Vicky felt for- tunate to be surrounded by competant, strong, good-natured people. At that time the half a million books that fell off the shelves had al- ready been picked up and shelf reading had begun. The staff was shar- ing lots of hugs. With the loss of the telephone system at the li- brary, BITNET had proven invaluable for communication. One week after the disaster things were not as bad as had first been feared, and peo- ple were "optimistically realistic." Things were moving fast. They let the Provost know the 60 year old building was hurt, and they got at- tention. On October 26, I received this message from Vicky: "BY YES- TERDAY WE HAD ALL THE MAIL SORTED AND BEGAN CHECKIN. WE HAD ACCESS TO OUR "NEW HOME" EARLY-MID AFTERNOON ON TUESDAY. THE STAFF ARE JUST FANTASTIC." In September, I experienced the same sort of caring that meant so much to Vicky and others, even though my immediate area had no emergency. When Hurricane Hugo struck North and South Carolina, many of you sent me messages. By the way, I have sent Katina Strauch all your messages in response to the newsletter issue that contained the interview with her after the storm. For Vicky, Katina, and myself, THANK YOU! Cindy Hepfer, SUNY Buffalo Health Sciences Library, sent a photocopy of an article in the September 21, 1989, NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDI- CINE, "How Good is Peer Review?" by Arnold S. Relman and Marcia An- gell. The system has come under general criticism recently in meetings and in articles. The authors say, "Particularly in view of recent cases in which fraudulent reports appeared in reputable journals after undergoing peer review, questions are being raised about the value of the review process as well as its reliability and objectivity." They point out that, while peer review greatly improves "the chances that published work is valid, it cannot guarantee scientific validity," simply because human beings are fallible. The limitations of peer review do not mean that it is without value. "When properly used it is a powerful means of protecting and improving the quality of what is published." ARTICLES TO LOOK FOR Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University, BITNET: NOTCAH@LSUVM. The October 25th issue of the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION contains an article by Judith Axler Turner, "Critics say Publisher's Suit In- hibits Inquiries into Rising Journal Costs." The article documents the variety of individuals who have been threatened in letters from Gordon and Breach for statements about either the publisher or its individual products. One suit, besides the Barschall/American Institute of Phys- ics suit that Turner mentions was filed against G.R. Luckhurst, a professor of chemistry at the University of Southampton in Britain. He became editor of a new journal, LIQUID CRYSTALS, published by Taylor and Francis, a year after he left the advisory board of Gordon and Breach's MOLECULAR CRYSTALS AND LIQUID CRYSTALS. Joseph Boisse, Li- brarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was advised by university lawyers that it would be "prudent" to retract an article critical of price gouging by publishers which used Gordon and Breach's EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE as an example. Joel Rutstein, Colo- rado State University Library was also threatened with a lawsuit for "slander and defamation." And Nancy Gubman of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences was accused of "engaging in a vendetta." Octave Levenspiel of Oregon State University, a chemical engineer, has also been threatened with legal action for letters appearing in CHEMICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION in the summer of 1988. Richard Meserve, the Washington lawyer for Barschall, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Physical Society, noted that an offer had been made to publish a letter from Gordon and Breach outlining the alleged er- rors in Barschall's original article, but that because AIP, et al, always give authors the opportunity to respond to criticism "and would do so with Mr. Barschall," Gordon and Breach has refused to provide a response. Pat Berger, speaking not for ALA, but for herself, is quoted in the article as believing the Gordon and Breach action is "interna- tional harassment." It is clear we have not seen the end of all this yet. Duane Webster of the Association of Research Libraries expressed concern in the CHRONICLE article that "nuisance suits" would "create a chill on discussion, examination, and debate on serial pricing and quality and discourage the exploration of causal factors and skyrock- eting costs." Two recent articles highlight problems in scientific literature pub- lished in journals. The ongoing work of Feder and Stewart with Repre- sentative Dingell's House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is part of the subject of an article in the October 29th NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, "Conduct Unbecoming," by Philip Weiss. The article details for the general public the travails of David Baltimore, Roch- ester University's newly named president. In 1986 he co-authored (one of six authors) an article for CELL. Baltimore, a former Nobel Laure- ate for his work on reverse transcriptase is a policy expert on AIDS, and his work uncovered major mechanisms in cancer virus propagation. The 1986 article announced important informtion about the immune sys- tem. A postdoctoral fellow accused a senior scientist on the research team of misreporting data in the article. Although the research was not done in Baltimore's lab, he came to the defense of his co-author. What raised "official" ire in part was his attempt to stop scrutiny of the research by "outsiders." This particular type of problem, judging the validity of research and "policing" science, as Katina Strauch reported in an earlier newsletter, just won't go away. In a similar vein, though with less well known researchers, the Sep- tember 29th issue of SCIENCE reports on a "cure" for epilepsy pub- lished in Gordon and Breach's INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE. The article in question, written by two Greek researchers, is blasted by American scientists, including two who are members of IJN's adviso- ry board. Lloyd Kaufman is quoted in the SCIENCE article as saying, "It's the worst thing I have seen in a scientific journal." The com- plaints come because the researchers did not describe adequately their "device," did no follow up, used no controls, and on "maps" of elec- tro-magnetic impulses, provided no scales on before and after scans. One of IJN's reviewers, according to its editor Sidney Weinstein, believed the finding was worth a Nobel prize. He does admit, however, that with the number of issues produced each year, "It's hard to find the reviewers you want." The new issue of SERIALS LIBRARIAN (volume 17, no. 1/2; 1989) has two critical articles. The first is by H. Craig Petersen, a professor of economics, Utah State University. Utah State has been working on mod- eling journal prices for the last two years. This is a sophisticated statistical analysis showing the results of a study of a random sample of journals. The abstract makes the conclusion clear: "Academic journ- als exhibit significant differences in price. Only part of this varia- tion can be attributed to costs of production and distribution. This study uses multiple regression analysis to investigate the determi- nants of the variations in prices for a random sample of 439 jour- nals." Prices in fact varied significantly by country of origin, and holding costs of production constant (and in the world-wide publishing system this is a reasonable constant) "the country of origin differen- tial was too large to be attributed solely to higher shipping costs." The article explains how the author accounted for many of the "ques- tions" typically asked using multiple regression analysis techniques. Given the number of variables tested for significance -- price, fre- quency, photographs, art or graphics in journal, advertising, number of pages, age of journal, type of publisher, subject of journal, and location published -- just about every "complaint" and plea for "spe- cial" case from a publisher or librarian has been considered. For those who need an econometric explanation: read the article!!! It's so good I wish I had written it! Surprisingly (for some) the article also indicates that prices from for-profit and government/non-profit insti- tutional publishers are ALL significantly higher than society jour- nals. With regression analysis accounting for cost and other non-cost factors, European journals, after making the playing ground level, so to speak, still had an average price 145 percent higher than U.S. and Canadian journals! Put simply, they cost more because they are from European publishers, not because they have fancier graphs or cover "science" areas. For those still in doubt, given Karen Hunter's letter to ARL and the Gordon and Breach suit, this may help remove their last doubts about why some journals are more equal than others -- it may also dispel the last vestiges of doubt that market pricing is the primary mechanism for setting prices. Peter Young's article, "Periodical Prices 1987-1989 Update" is also in this issue of SERIALS LIBRARIAN. Thank you SERIALS LIBRARIAN for an exceptional issue and a timely one. The September 28, 1989, issue of NATURE has an article by Blackwell's John Merriman on pages 349-50, entitled "Publishing and Perishing?" This is a balanced discussion from the English perspective of the role played by scientists themselves in the reduced purchasing power of libraries. THOUGHTS ON READING THE HUNTER/WEBSTER LETTERS IN ISSUE NO. 11 Lelde Gilman, UCLA Biomedical Library, BITNET: ECZ5LBG@UCLAMVS. [My opinions are my own and NOT OFFICIALLY THE BIOMEDICAL LIBRARY'S OR UCLA'S.] When will the publishers stop calling on librarians to help resolve a problem they have created?? When will librarians realize that they are in a profession that is currently (and has always been to a large extent) in direct opposition to the ultimate goals of large, commer- cial PACKAGERS and SELLERS of information created within the academic community? Why is it that in this climate of commercialization and privatization we still expect the publishers and librarians to work out differences to some mutual benefit?? What is the mutual benefit?? Publishers are in business to sell and to maximize profit so that they can further develop saleable items. Librarians are not in business (for the most part), they are in service (alas!) and their role is to provide maximum access for the least cost. These roles and goals are in direct conflict! The publisher is concerned with selling for the maximum amount possible; the librarian is concerned with disseminating for the least amount possible! We should stop pretending that publish- ers are in this for the greater good of scholarly publication and act accordingly. There is nothing wrong with librarians accepting their role as alert and civil opponents to publishers' attempts to create markets where there should be none. A favorite quote from the NATURE journal review issue (just out): "But the gap the JOURNAL OF EVOLU- TIONARY BIOLOGY seeks to occupy does not exist." Needless to say, we did not rush to subscribe! Let us not forget that librarians, for the most part, are "middlewom- en/men" in this thing, who are EXPECTED by their institutions to do the best they can with the collection funds they have available. Their first responsibility is to serve the extant and projected information needs of their institutions' primary users through the best collection of journals/monographs/other media available. They must do this in a fiscally responsible manner, making sound judgments and requesting new funding IF AND WHEN THIS IS NECESSARY. Their loyalty is to the schol- arly community and NOT TO THE COMMERCIAL PUBLISHERS. They have a busi- ness arrangement with the publishers and vendors for material that is generated by the scholarly community. Publishers make their living from scholars and librarians/libraries. To most commercial publishers, libraries are a market, and a market only. If librarians only realized this, they would not be so "shocked, shocked, shocked that there is such price gouging (there is!) going on here." We should be more realistic about what is possible and reasona- ble for us to do. When librarians clearly see that the commercial sector is taking advantage of the librarian's position and is exploit- ing it for its own benefit, they have a duty to advise the scholarly community of this and enlist their support in addressing the situa- tion. I am certainly not for curtailing scientific communication, nor am I against new journals. I am just making the observation that we should not get so shocked about publishers doing what they are in business to do! If I were a publisher or a publisher's rep, I would say exactly what Karen said, but I am not, so I favor Duane's stance. About science journals and how we do it at UCLA's Biomedical Library: Every journal starts out with a sample issue which is carefully exam- ined in light of others in the same subject area. It is placed on a "Hold 2" status. It may move up to a "Hold 1" status if it gets in- dexed by INDEX MEDICUS or is requested by faculty in several disci- plines or several faculty in one discipline. It then gets reconsidered together with other new titles in that subject or discipline. If a subscription is placed, it is reviewed in three years in light of use and reviews. The NATURE journal review issue is read very carefully, and the reviewers' comments are taken seriously. What is good about the NATURE issue is that reviewers compare the new titles in various subject areas. Need we get all titles on evolutionary biology, or just one? And so on.... We have seen many a journal die after three years of what must be no subscriptions on the part of libraries or individu- als. We pick up well-reviewed journals if they are requested and exam- ined here. Some might say that we are impeding scientific progress by not allowing access to important informaiton by interested parties. Is there anyone who takes this seriously? The many scientists I know personally and professionally all share the belief that good science will find a high quality existing journal for dissemination of its results. (However, these are tenured people!!) Yes, there are specialized journals in fast growing new areas that can serve as vehicles for communication within a particular group of sci- entists and be of good quality. We will and do subscribe to some of these. If the journal is good and important, individual researchers will subscribe to it (Garfield says this as well), and it will stay alive because there is a real need for it. Yes, the academic institu- tions, scholarly societies, university presses, and deans of schools (who set faculty tenure standards) should address this problem, just as the ALA president is urging. I have always had a problem with publishers (and vendors) giving lav- ish parties and receptions at professional meetings and flying librar- ians to various anniversary celebrations. If they wish to thank the institution or the profession, why don't they lower the prices of some of the journals or their service charges? That would benefit all and compromise no one! But, that is just not how business is done here, is it.... Finally, I find that publishers are enormously threatened by the abil- ity of librarians to communicate nationwide through e-mail networks about what is happening, to disseminate their findings, and to plan for concerted action. Why is this the case? NEW POLICY AT NSF (AND AN HONORARY DEGREE FOR MAXWELL) Mike Renshaw, McGill University, BITNET: AD70@MCGILLA. In the Association of American Universities' "Washington Report" of October 11, 1989 (page 5) is a summary of the NSF's new policy reduc- ing "to no more than 10" the number of publications considered during merit review of research proposals. The summary indicates that "The NSF limitation on number of publications considered in merit review dovetails with intensive efforts in the research library community to control the spiraling costs of journals and serials." It then goes on to cite ARL reports and recommendations about changes that would re- duce the emphasis on publication volume for promotion, tenure, and funding. This should cheer everyone up immensely. As announced in the Montreal Daily News October 17th: The University of Trois-Rivieres said yesterday it will award an honorary doctorate to British communications tycoon Robert Maxwell for his long-standing support of scientific periodicals. The degree will be awarded at graduation ceremonies on November 25th. Maxwell is a "part-owner" of the Montreal Daily News. Despite our efforts, Maxwell and other "tycoons" are still heroes to most of the world! WHEN THE EARTH MOVED, SO DID TECHNICAL SERVICES: A STATUS REPORT ON TECHNICAL SERVICES AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES Cynthia (Tia) I. Gozzi, Director for Technical Services, Stanford University (sent to the newsletter by Vicky Reich) October 26, 1989 At 5:04 p.m. on Tuesday, October 17, 1989, northern California experi- enced an earthquake rivaled in severity only by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. A number of the Stanford University Libraries (SUL) were adversely affected by the quake. As many of you have expressed con- cern, this will serve as an update to you, our technical services colleagues around the country, with regard to our recovery progress. Although the University was closed, earthquake recovery was initiated on Wednesday, October 18, when SUL Directors met to determine the appropriate course of action. Among other, more serious damage, hun- dreds of thousands of books and other library materials fell from their shelves during the quake. Reshelving efforts, which began on Thursday, October 19, continue at this time. To date, a good number of libraries have been quick to resume as many of their services and operations as possible. However, since the quake, Tech Services staff (approximately 125 people) have been unable to reoccupy their workspace in the west wing of the Green Library (referred to as Green West), which has been declared unsafe. As a result, technical service operations have been temporarily interrupt- ed. Optimism prevails, however. We are hopeful that the damage can be repaired, although it could be a matter of weeks to months to years before staff are able to return to all parts of Green West. The really good news is that no Tech Services staff were injured and all have been assisting other libraries in bringing operations back together. The Tech Services status report, department by department, follows: (1) Serials Department: Staff of the Records and Acquisitions sections have been relocated to the third floor Sorting Room in the east wing of the Green Library (Green East). The manual Serials Records file (the drawers anyway) has been relocated to the sorting room. We have resumed serials check-in, as well as invoice processing and catalog maintenance. Until we gain access to RLIN we will be unable to claim. We're happy to report that most of the journal issues which were in Green West at the time of the earthquake have been retrieved. At this time the staff of the Serials Cataloging and Retrospective Conversion sections are still without "homes," as are Vicky Reich and Miriam Palm, Chief and Assistant Chief of the Serials Department, respectively. (2) Catalog Department: Because the Music Library was relatively un- damaged, the music cataloging operation located there is continuing as normal. Staff of the Special Collections Cataloging Section have been relocated to the Music Library and are working with the music Catalog- ing Section, cataloging rare and Slavic language music books and con- verting music materials. Most Catalog Department staff, including the Acting Co-Chiefs and Acting Assistant Chief, are still without "homes." Although most cata- loging functions can't be performed at the moment, several projects have been organized and, together with tasks being performed for other SUL operations, are keeping Tech Services staff occupied. (3) Preservation Department: The Department Chief, Connie Brooks, and Conservators Eleanore Stewart and Walter Henry, have advised Branner Library staff about disaster recovery procedures for maps and books that received post-earthquake water damage. Brittle Books Office staff, responsible for preservation microfilming efforts, have been temporarily relocated to Green East. Three members of the Repair Unit are being relocated to the Meyer Library and will resume the normal repair program. Another staff member will "float" to one or more branch libraries to help with collections damaged during the earthquake. Other Preservation Department staff have yet to be relocated, but are keeping busy. Staff of the Binding and Finishing Unit are currently reshelving books in Green East. (4) Acquisitions Department: The Search and Order Division has been divided up and housed with Foreign Language and Area Collection and General Reference staff in Green East. This arrangement provides staff with access to selectors, as well as limited RLIN access. Because some regular work functions have been curtailed, staff combine regular work with shelf reading in the Green East stacks. Staff of the Processing and Receipts and Gifts and Exchange divisions are still displaced, as is Ruth Tucker, Department Chief. Most staff are currently shelf reading in Green East. Although it is too soon to estimate when all technical service opera- tions will be back to normal (conditions here are changing daily, if not hourly), we will keep you informed of our progress. Thank you for your concern. MEANWHILE, FROM OVER IN BERKELEY.... Gary Lawrence, University of California, BITNET: GSL$SR@UCCMVSA. (Message of October 24, in response to the editor's question) We know that many of our colleagues are concerned, and I'm happy to say that things are in a much better state for the UC libraries than we might have expected. As you can imagine, I spent much of last Wed- nesday - Friday trying to find out, on behalf of the Office of the President, how our Northern California libraries had fared (a process that was complicated by the fact that the Office of the President's building in Berkeley was itself closed for structural inspection on Wednesday), but sufficient normalcy has returned that I spent all of yesterday (Monday) in a regularly-scheduled meeting of public service librarians from the nine campuses. To summarize conditions here, the libraries at Berkeley, Davis, and San Francisco, and our northern regional storage facility, came through with minor cosmetic damage (actually, no damage at all at Davis) and no personal injuries. The Doe and Moffitt libraries at Berkeley were closed on Wednesday for inspection, but were open for business on Thursday; the other libraries named above (including all other branches at Berkeley) were in full or limited operation on Wed- nesday. At the Santa Cruz campus, there was no structural damage to any campus building, and NO INJURIES on campus. However, there was considerable structural damage to the shelving at the Santa Cruz main library, and it is not clear when they will be back in full operation. To the best of my knowledge, the only University-related deaths were four personnel from the San Francisco campus whose vanpool was in- volved in the collapse of the Cypress Structure on I-880; none was library staff. The reports of "fire near the library" are based on an early report from a KCBS helicopter pilot who, being unfamiliar with local Berkeley geography, guessed that a major Berkeley fire looked like it "might be the Berkeley Public Library." In fact, the fire (which was at an auto-towing company) was about a block from Berkeley Public (about a helf-mile from Doe Library) and was contained with no damage to surrounding buildings. There are, of course, tales of personal tragedy enough to go round, business and transportation in the Bay Area will be disrupted for some time to come, and our colleagues are not untouched (I know of several librarians at Santa Cruz whose homes suffered significant structural damage, although none was displaced), but the UC libraries in general withstood this seismic surprise in amazingly good shape. Please share this good news with your colleagues, and thanks for your concern. LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF PHYSICS TODAY Larry Lucas, Research Chemist, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg MD 20899 (submitted by Patricia W. Ber- ger, with the comment: "How's THIS for creativity?") I have followed the discussions and lamentations about increasing subscription rates for scientific journals with interest, and I would like to offer some comments and suggestions based upon my experience as a reviewer and one-time assistant editor. The process of generating and disseminating scientific information consists of five basic steps: 1. Generating the information to be reported; 2. Generating the report; 3. Internal editing and reviewing; 4. External editing and reviewing; 5. Reproducing and distributing the report. For most scientific publications, the cost per step decreases as one goes down the list. Steps 1 through 3 are generally carried out by the authors and/or their particular institution and will not be discussed here. Submission of a report for publication in a journal occurs be- tween steps 3 and 4. Most of the discussion to date seems to center on the control exer- cised by a few large publishers over step 5. While this is certainly of concern, I think that it overemphasizes step 5, which I consider to be the least crucial and the least costly step in the process: Anyone can pay to have a journal printed and distrivuted. I contend that step 4 is more crucial and more costly than step 5 and that step 4 remains under the control of the scientific community. To be scientifically and economically viable, a journal needs a large number of knowledgea- ble and dedicated editors and reviewers. These editors and reviewers are recruited from the scientific community and usually work for a publisher without any significant compensation. This represents a significant subsidy and is absolutely essential to the success of a scientific journal. Furthermore, the subsidy comes not so much from the individual editors and reviewers (although there are many who contribute their own time and resources as well), but from the insti- tutions that employ them. And the subsidy can be significant indeed. I estimate that NIST subsidizes scientific journals to the extent of more than one million dollars per year, primarily in the form of staff time. This is almost equal to the yearly cost of all of the journals in our Research Information Center. I think it is important for each institution to evaluate the magnitude of its subsidies and to consciously decide upon the conditions under which it chooses to continue them. We need not continue to subsidize our own demise, just because we have done so in the past. I present the following sample guidelines as an example of the position that an institution might take. The guidelines are not intended to be com- plete, but rather to provide a basis for further discussion. SAMPLE GUIDELINES All use of institutional assets to assist in the publication of scientific journals must conform to the following guidelines. Institutional assets include staff time, building space, materials, and services. IF the journal in question is published by a recognized scholarly organization dedicated to the advancement of science and to the dissemination of scientific information in its field(s), AND the journal in question is published on a not-for-profit ba- sis, AND the Director of this Institution has determined that in order to further the goals of this Institution it is essential to subsidize the publication of the journal in question, THEN the Director of this Institution may authorize the use of specific institutional assets to provide editorial and review- ing services to the journal in question. IF the journal in question is published by a for-profit organiza- tion, OR the journal in question is published on a for-profit basis, OR the Director of this Institution has determined that in order to further the goals of this institution it is not essential to subsidize the publication of the journal in question, THEN no institutional assets are to be used to provide services to the journal in question. IF the Director of this Institution has determined that in order to further the goals of this Institution it is essential to assist, but not to subsidize, the publication of the journal in question, THEN the Director of this Institution may authorize the sale, at cost, of the editorial and reviewing services to the journal in question. What would happen if these guidelines were adopted by all of the educational and governmental institutions? I predict that: (a) The majority of scientific journals would be published by non- profit organizations that are dedicated to the advancement of science (rather than profits); (b) The copyright revenue, such as that generated from the sale of information to commercial publishers and information services, could be used to reduce the cost of a journal to an institution that has helped to subsidize its production; (c) Fewer articles would be published, and those that are published would be of higher quality, because of the greater awareness in the scientific community of the true costs of editing, reviewing, and publishing. What do you think? HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University, BITNET: NOTCAH@LSUVM The November 6 issue of TIME carries a letter from Nancy F. Bush, Information Officer, Library of Congress, claiming a March press re- lease on the "PENTAGON" DOD procurement scandal. She says LC discov- ered the abuse and "corrective actions" were taken. Also, it wasn't a 15 percent rakeoff, just 5 percent. Barbara von Wahlde, Director of Libraries at SUNY Buffalo, has report- ed that at its recent meeting, the National Association of State Uni- versities and Land Grant Colleges endorsed the ARL Serials Report. In addition, work done at Utah State University (Logan Utah) has brought NASULGC to the point of forming a library committee to continue inves- tigation of the problems facing libraries. This is apparently the first time that the heads of the country's land grant colleges and universities have formed a library committee. All land grant institu- tions should check with provosts or chancellors to determine further what involvement NASULGC envisions. RESPONSE FROM MARCEL DEKKER Danny Jones, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio The following letter to Danny Jones from Marcel Dekker is dated Sep- tember 21: Dear Mr. Jones: RE: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE ADDICTIONS When I read your September 7, 1989 letter in response to my August 10, letter to you, I realized that I somehow must have been remiss in my explanation. Your supposition that this journal is "obviously trou- bled" is an entirely erroneous conclusion. The problem with the jour- nal is that it has TOO MUCH of a backlog of manuscripts, and if any- thing we can't publish the material sequentially fast enough. The schedule that I showed you is an indication of the attempt we are making to get it out in a timely fashion. In 1990 the journal is publishing an extra volume as a silver anniver- sary volume. The manuscripts are available and will be published. By saying the journal is troubled, you are implying that it may have editorial problems when, in fact, it is well recognized as the leading journal in the field. Your decision not to subscribe leaves you with journals ranking second in the field at best. My suggestion is that you rethink your decision. If, on the other hand, you cannot afford the journal, then that is different matter entirely. If it would be more palatable for you to subscribe to only one of the two 1990 volumes, then please let me know, and I will see whether we can work out an arrangement for you to pay only half of the total. However, you will be missing an entire volume this way. In 1991 the journal will again be one volume of 12 issues. My purpose in writing is to give you the true overview of the jour- nal's situation so that you can make a more informed decision based on these facts. I hope I have been of some help. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Readers of the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES are encouraged to share the information in the newsletter by electronic or paper methods. We would appreciate credit if you quote from the newsletter. ====================================================================== The NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES (ISSN: 1046-3410) is pub- lished as news is available by the American Library Association's Association of Library Collections and Technical Services, Publisher/ Vendor-Library Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Serials Pricing Issues. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, BITNET: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET; Faxon's DataLinx: TUTTLE; ALANET: ALA0348; Paper mail: Serials Department, C.B. #3938 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3938. Committee members are: Deana Astle (Clem- son University), Mary Elizabeth Clack (Harvard University), Jerry Curtis (Consultant), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), Robert Houbeck (University of Michigan), and Marcia Tuttle. EBSCONET customers may receive the newsletter in paper format from EBSCO. Back issues of the newsletter are available electronically free of charge through BITNET from the editor and in paper from ALCTS, American Li- brary Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago IL 60611. Paper issues are priced at $5.00 per issue, per copy, prepaid. Billing charge: $2.00, plus postage. ====================================================================== ******ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE******* ======================================================================== Subject: Pricing Newsletter 13 Date: Tue, 05 Dec 89 21:37 EST ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NUMBER 13 -- DECEMBER 3, 1989 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS FROM THE EDITOR, Marcia Tuttle THE CHARLESTON CONFERENCE: ISSUES IN BOOK AND SERIAL ACQUI- SITIONS, Janet Flowers HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS, Chuck Hamaker "THE INTERNATIONAL PSP MARKET: AN UPDATE," BY FRED KOBRAK, Deana Astle WHEN THE EARTH MOVED ... PART 2, Vicky Reich ARL OFFICE OF SCIENTIFIC AND ACADEMIC PUBLISHING (OSAP), Association of Research Libraries Staff AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY COST COMPARISON STUDY, Dana Sally TEST PARTICIPANTS NEEDED FOR SERIALS SURVEY, Jane Treadwell AN EXPERIMENT IN LOWER JOURNAL PRICES, Robert K. Peet FROM THE EDITOR Marcia Tuttle Thank you for the messages calling attention to relevant notices in the press and asking questions. We pass these on to all our subscrib- ers. For example, Brad Carrington, Head o