Newsletter on Serial Pricing Issues 009 (OCTOBER 3, 1991) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/nspi/nspi-ns009 Archive PRICES: file prices.ns9, part 1/1, size 27233 bytes: ------------------------------ Cut here ------------------------------ ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NS 9 -- OCTOBER 3, 1991 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS FROM THE EDITOR, Marcia Tuttle BRITISH RESPONSES TO BLACKWELL/PERGAMON PRICING NEWS IN NS 8, Fred Friend and Barry Anderson US RESPONSES TO BLACKWELL/PERGAMON PRICING NEWS IN NS 8, Mark Funk, Keith Stetson,and Siegfried Ruschin CHEMISTRY SERIALS COSTS, John O. Christensen FROM THE MAILBOX HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS, Chuck Hamaker FROM THE EDITOR Marcia Tuttle, TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET. I've just finished reading the September 1991 LIBRARY ISSUES and want to recommend the feature article, "The Future of the Library: A View from the Provost's Office." It consists of a hypothetical letter writ- ten for a hypothetical faculty from a hypothetical provost -- and the author is an actual provost, Billy E. Frye of Emory University. The letter makes a strong case for cooperative collection development (a "shift from maximum OWNERSHIP of material to maximum ACCESS to materi- als") in terms of costs, technology, and intellectual need. The imagi- nary letter concludes with a plan for action: the establishment of an Office of Library Planning and Development, with a seven-part charge. Frye's article is based on an occasional paper published by the Ameri- can Council of Learned Societies. Every chief academic officer should see it. Several days ago I was speaking with a serials subscription agent on the telephone. He mentioned the new Elsevier Science Publishers 1992 catalog, and I reached for my copy. His concern was the great propor- tion of titles in the catalog preceded by an asterisk, the signal for "increased number of volumes." "There's at least one on every page!" he said. (For Barking and New York publications a note is used instead of an asterisk.) As I looked through the catalog my own eye was caught by the boldfaced word "NEW" next to so many titles. I did a fairly quick and very dirty survey. The catalog lists five titles for which publication is cancelled after 1991, with two of them having ceased publication. Elsevier Science Publishers (Amsterdam) lists 352 titles (varies according to how one counts the combined subscriptions); 93 carry the asterisk (on 81 pages!), and 15 are marked "NEW." New jour- nals are both entirely new titles and titles formerly published by another company. In some cases a title is both "NEW" and "increased." Figures for the Elsevier companies included in the catalog are: Location Total Asterisk NEW Amsterdam 352 93 15 Barking, England 115 39 25 Lausanne, Switzerland 39 14 0 Limerick, Ireland 28 9 0 Limerick (Excerpta Medica) 50 7 0 New York 77 11 5 Paris 37 N/A 1 TOTAL: 698 173 46 Don't anybody use this to try to prove anything! I didn't recheck my figures. But it's interesting.... To balance the previous paragraph, please see Elsevier's "Information on Information" 2-page spread in the October 1 LIBRARY JOURNAL, in which the company discusses journal prices and the factors contribut- ing to them. Especially: In 1992, the entire Elsevier Science Publishers journal program will expand by 7 percent in relation to the number of volumes scheduled for the current year. In addition, there are some in- stances where more issues or pages will be published without increasing the number of volumes announced for 1992.... Our North American subscribers will find that the combined effects of per- volume increases and expansion in the total number of scheduled volumes will be offset by the stronger dollar.... The September 27 issue of SCIENCE carries an article, "New Journal Will Publish Without Paper," (page 1480) about the new AAAS/OCLC elec- tronic journal, THE ONLINE JOURNAL OF CURRENT CLINICAL TRIALS. It is called the "world's first online, peer-reviewed journal," which should surprise some of our readers. Joseph Palca, author of the article, supported by former NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE editor Arnold Relman, expresses doubt that the journal's format will be accepted by its intended audience of physicians. However, the fact that it will be indexed by BIOSIS should "help convince authors that the electronic medium is an accepted alternative to paper publication" (according to Patricia A. Morgan, AAAS director of publications). The article ends with a quote from Erich Block, former director of the National Science Foundation: "If I were AAAS, I would have gone a step further. I would have put SCIENCE online." Finally, I hope this is the last time I have to mention distribution problems. I am assured, once again, that they are cleared up. This issue should go out to the current mailing list instead of to one several months old. Again, if anyone missed the previous few issues, just let me know and I will send them to you. Thanks for your pa- tience; your messages have been great! BRITISH RESPONSES TO BLACKWELL/PERGAMON PRICING NEWS IN NS 8 Fred Friend, Librarian, University College, London, UCYL@UCL.AC.UK; and Barry Anderson, Sales and Promotion Manager, Royal Society of Chemistry, Nottingham, England, RSC1@GEC-B.RUTHERFORD.AC.UK. FROM FRED FRIEND: I was very sorry to read of the bad news regarding 1992 prices for US libraries. We were already expecting price rises above inflation but I share the strong feelings expressed in Newslet- ter 8. However, please do not let this develop into an anti-British crusade. The problems are international and we have to stick together in solving them. The publishers have in the past played off one coun- try against another in their pricing policy, and I suspect that was behind Pergamon's reference to 1991 US prices being 18 percent lower than the rest of the world, implying that you have been lucky in the past! Two conclusions I draw from this sorry episode. Firstly, we must re- double our efforts to break the strangle-hold of commercial publishers over scholarly communication. Secondly, we must be able to buy sub- scriptions in whatever currency suits us. The interpretation I put upon Blackwell's letter is that they are asking US libraries to take the risk of a possible (and only a possible) fall in the value of the dollar against European currencies. Do US libraries not have sterling bank accounts? [As I understand it, Fred, most do not. Mine certainly doesn't, and I don't believe we would be permitted by the state to do so. -Ed.] FROM BARRY ANDERSON: We have read with interest issue 8 September 6 1991 of the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES in which concern is expressed at the apparent high dollar price increases levied by Brit- ish publishers for 1992 journal subscriptions. The effect of constant price rises above the rate of inflation at a time of limited library funds is recognised by the Royal Society of Chemistry and for next year we have made a conscious decision to limit our dollar price in- creases to approximately 3.0 percent, considerably less than corres- ponding sterling price increases. The weakening of the pound against the dollar has helped, although at the time of writing the rate of exchange is approaching the level prevailing at the time our 1991 prices were set. However 1992 price rises for the component parts of our main journal, JOURNAL OF THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY, have increased by less than 2.0 percent in some cases. Comparisons of budgeted editorial pages also reflect the fact that we are attracting more papers, which in turn increases production and distribution costs. We expect to publish over 3 percent more pa- pers next year compared to 1991 and we will be increasing two journals PERKIN TRANSACTIONS I and DALTON TRANSACTIONS from 12 issues to 24 issues per annum. In spite of this there will be no increase in the dollar price per page. The American market is very important to us and we hope it will be recognised that we are doing all we can to moderate the effect of price rises on the US librarians budget. US RESPONSE TO BLACKWELL/PERGAMON PRICING NEWS IN NS 8 Mark Funk, Cornell University Medical College, New York, NY, MARK_FUNK@QMCUMC.MAIL.CORNELL.EDU; Keith Stetson, Fairfield Univer- sity, KSTETSON@FAIR1.BITNET; and Siegfried Ruschin, Linda Hall Li- brary, NDAY@UMKCVAX1.BITNET. FROM MARK FUNK: Has anybody mentioned the alarming number of journals which are increasing their frequency and/or pagination? My suspicions are that this is a very easy, cynical way for publishers to increase their profits lost by fewer new subscriptions and more cancellations. They have "locked in" libraries to expensive, difficult-to-cancel titles, and are squeezing us for all we are worth. And when publishers double the frequency, they double the price, even though there is not a doubling in their overall costs. Not only is this practice hurting libraries, it is diluting the already questionable quality of much of what is published today and adds to the problem of literature retriev- al. Where are the editorial boards? How can they essentially lower their reviewing standards in order to double the number of articles published? Ultimately, it is their readers who will suffer the conse- quences. FROM KEITH STETSON: After receiving Michael Boswood's August 23, 1991 letter on 1992 subscription prices, I called the Elmsford NY office to get the 1992 price for RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES, ISSN: 0891-4222. The 1991 rate was $145. The 1992 rate is 120 Pounds, which at the $1.60 pound/dollar exchange rate is $192, a 32.4 percent in- crease. I called the next day about NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA, ISSN: 0028-3932. The 1991 rate was $745; the 1992 rate was quoted in dollars at $800, a 7.4 percent increase. I look forward to receiving the 1992/1993 sub- scription prices catalog to check the rest of our Pergamon titles. FROM SIEGFRIED RUSCHIN: One wonders what justifies some of the sharp price increases for serials that we are beginning to see again and that contrast with the not unreasonable more optimistic expectations that some of us had earlier in the year. Inflation has been moderate, paper prices are reportedly down, and the dollar is considerably stronger than it was a year ago. The Pergamon list deserves close scrutiny before one draws any final decision about the need for further sharp cancellations. But one title stands out on very preliminary inspection. CORROSION SCIENCE went from $585.00 for 1991 to $992.00 (L620.00) for 1992, an increase of 69.6 percent. If a library pays for two-year subscriptions, as Linda Hall Library has generally done, the payment for 1992-1993 this year would be 120 percent higher than it was for the preceding two years (1990- 1991). One ends up wondering how many libraries can or should be able to absorb such increases. CHEMISTRY SERIALS COSTS John O. Christensen, Brigham Young University, LIBJOC@BYUVM.BITNET. Chuck Hamaker, LSU, recently wrote a critique of the upcoming serials price increases in which he singled out the American Chemical Society and other societies who are apparently joining the surge of large increases in subscription prices for 1992. However, there are other considerations than the percentage increase in price of a periodical. I have been doing research on chemistry journal pricing for an article I will soon finish and plan to submit for publication. Chuck Hamaker's comments pushed me into getting out some of my preliminary results. The average price of a commercially produced chemistry journal in 1990 was about $1,010. The average price of a society produced chemistry journal in 1990 was about $450. This more than 2 to 1 ratio has been about the same for the past 10 years. However, society journals are also bigger than commercial journals. The average cost/million charac- ters printed for commercial journals was about $24.00 in 1990. The average cost/million characters for society journals was about $6.00 in 1990. In other words, the 2 to 1 ratio becomes a 4 to 1 ratio when considering quantity published. In 1990 the commercial publishers published about the same amount (quantity) but charged 4 times more money for it. Now, the RATES of increase for commercial publishers have been only slightly more during the past decade than the RATES of increase for society publishers; the following example illustrates the point. Let's say I am a society publisher and I earn $20,000 per year in salary and I have a commercial publisher friend, Pete, who earns a salary of $80,000 per year. In 1992 each of us decides to raise his salary 20 percent. My salary will go up $4,000 to $24,000 per year. Pete will get a raise of $16,000 to $96,000 per year. Someone might criticize me for pretending to be holding the line when I then raised my salary at the same rate as my commercial friend Pete but the bottom line is that Pete will be getting $16,000 more per year and I will be getting only $4,000 more per year. That has been the situation with commercial and society publishers for at least the past 10 years. I will gladly pay the American Chemical Society 20 percent rate in- crease that Chuck Hamaker complains about even if I have to cancel some commercial journals because I know that they give me much more for my money. In 1990 THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY cost $1.48 per million characters and the other ACS journals were in that same range. The average ACS journal is even cheaper than the average society journal. Compare that $1.48 to the average cost of commercial journals of $23.82 per million characters (some go over $100 per million characters). In my research I also brought into the picture the ISI Impact Factor, which is a measure of a journal's quality based on its being cited by authors in their articles. ISI is the Institute for Scientific Infor- mation, the parent company of SCIENCE CITATION INDEX and other publi- cations. When I combined impact factor with cost of a journal the same ratio of about 4 to 1 was maintained between society journals and commercial journals with commercial journals being 4 times as expen- sive for the quality they produced but the range was even greater. For example, the ratio of cost to impact factor for THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY was 0.28. At the bottom of the list was a commercial journal with a ratio of cost to impact factor of 417, about 1500 times more expensive for the quality. The average society publi- cation had a cost to impact factor ratio of 5.81 in 1989 and the aver- age commercial publication had a cost to impact factor ratio of 19.01 in 1989. I am still waiting for the 1990 impact factors from ISI. The above results were taken from about 150 chemistry journal sub- scriptions held at the Brigham Young University library; hopefully an article detailing the results will be published soon. If you have questions you can reach me at e-mail address LIBJOC@BYUVM.BITNET, or phone (801)-378-2928 or by writing John O. Christensen, Physical Sci- ences Librarian, 2402 HBLL, BYU, Provo, Utah 84602. FROM THE MAILBOX The mailbox is: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET. >From Michael A. Keller, Yale University (MKELLER@YALEVM.BITNET): Read "Peer review: treacherous servant, disastrous master," by Charles W.McCutchen (TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, October 1991) for a damn- ing appraisal of aspects of scientific peer review. Among other things he recommends that "Specialist journals should never re- ject." Amazing. This paper seems problematic as it names and cites specific individuals and problems. On the other hand, it may help get a discussion going in our universities and scientif- ic societies. >From Karen Hunter, Elsevier Science Publishers (KHUNTER@PUCC.BITNET): One small correction in the Hamaker's Haymakers of no. 8. The Elsevier UK exchange rate for 1992 is US $1.615 to the pound, not $1.65. Just for the record. >From Jeanne Richardson, Arizona State University (IACJMR@ASUACAD.BIT- NET): At Arizona State University we just finished identifying roughly $200,000 of periodicals to cancel for the 1992 calendar year. Like other research libraries, library subject specialists worked with faculty representatives to develop a list of journals to cancel that totaled a preset dollar amount. An interesting change in the usual procedure was that we next mounted these target titles (along with their costs) on the CARL online catalog to solicit feedback from the ASU community at large. The response was great. We heard from many people, via campus E-mail, who otherwise might have not known about the review process. >From Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University (NOTCAH@LSUVM.BITNET): Could some of our readers help us with reviewing articles in the AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF SERIALS LIBRARIANSHIP? Issue 2 of vol. 1 (1990) 29-37 carried an article contrasting title statistics and price statistics for CSIRO, Academic, Elsevier, Pergamon & Springer. The same issue discussed construction and maintenance of an Australian serials cost index and issue 3 had an article by a publisher on publishing. All look like appropri- ate articles for review or at least mention in the newsletter. How about some help? >From David Taylor, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (TAYLODC @UNC.BITNET). [Actually this was in my paper mail in the latest issue of UNC-CH's "Library Notes," edited by Taylor. -Ed.]: RESERVE READING RUSHED: The Reserve Reading operation in the Undergraduate Library has been busier than at any time in the past ten years, since the invention of course packs. Indeed, course packs, those compilations of photocopies of readings com- piled by teachers and sold to students similarly to text books, seem to be the reason for the reserve rush this fall. Since the court decision in favor of Basic Books and against Kinko's in April, course pack publishers have adopted new procedures for insuring that copyright permission has been obtained. Faculty may have been surprised at the delay caused by this procedural change, and have had to place materials on reserve in the Library as an alternative. The Undergraduate Library reports that twice as many reserve lists had been received and 60 percent more books placed on re- serve in August 1991 than August 1990. Extraordinary effort by staff during the last week of August caught up with the worst of the backlog in processing reserve lists, according to David Tay- lor, Undergraduate Librarian. While many books and articles are yet to be placed on reserve, at least some materials from every reserve list the Library has received have been made available to students. Peter Graham, Rutgers University (GRAHAM@ZODIAC.BITNET) forwarded the minutes of the 1991 conference of the Association for History and Computing and pointed out the following: Negotiations are under way with Oxford University Press concern- ing the renewal of their support for the journal [HISTORY AND COMPUTING]. As it stands now, production costs are much higher than what is charged for the journal. Some measures are taken to reduce costs, but the price charged to members is likely to rise in the next year (SUBSCRIBE NOW!). HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University, NOTCAH@LSUVM.BITNET. Reading Boswood's letter on Pergamon from the last issue, you might get the impression that because US rates in 1991 were lower than worldwide rates for Pergamon journals, the 18 percent increase he mentions in the US price was necessary because the dollar price meant Pergamon was losing money on US sales. Well, not exactly, and he cer- tainly doesn't say that, but it is an "implication" some might want to use for "justifying" the enormous rate increase, for rationalizing the decision to go to world-wide, single rate pricing. Don't lose sleep over Elsevier's profit on the Pergamon deal or the "special" price we've been paying. See BOOKSELLER, Sept. 6, 1991 (p. 619): Pergamon Outdoes Elsevier Expectations. "Elsevier says results from Pergamon Press .... were 'even more favourable than expected.'" Elsevier's projection of a 10 percent per share increase in operating income in 1991 is "now seen as conservative." The first six months of 1991 showed a 9 percent growth in pretax profits on sales up 5 percent. Efficient company! In other words, though the "rationale" for raising U.S. rates to worldwide rates may sound plausible, the effect on prof- itabilty should certainly be more than theoretical. Profit we understand, and loss we understand considerably better than most of the large conglomerates. To the whole publishing community, not just Elsevier certainly, the message of academic and research libraries is clear and simple: When your profit is the library community's loss, our patrons' loss and ultimately loss to the very researchers the press exists to serve, then something is seriously wrong with the system. You all exist for something larger than the your individual balance sheets. When those balance sheets threaten the very existence and stability of the system we all support, don't get upset when you see our reactions; in large measure you have provoked them. Some publishers may already be enter- ing the cancellation-price spiral. That reaction will only accelerate the demise of a system that may not be salvagable. When scientists try to understand why the system they've relied on is failing, it won't be libraries they blame. In every meaningful sense our failure is ulti- mately your failure. Your survival and ours is absolutely linked. The demise of libraries and collections has often been predicted: we will become "white elephants," some say. But as we head for the boneyard, where will publishers and vendors be? My guess is they will continue to ride the elephant and be squashed when we fall. Serious efforts are needed to save even the semblance of the system we are joined to. So far there has been little evidence of cooperation. A naive faith that all will continue as it has since World War Two is touching, but hard- ly reality. My personal estimate is that cancellations for 1992 could reach 15 percent to 20 percent for many publishers. Will publisher response be to just tack that on to "inflation" and page growth? That response will accelerate the demise of the system. The next twelve months could be critical to the survival of the sys- tem, and there should be major efforts going on among publishers, libraries, vendors and researchers to rescue and change. I see little evidence of such effort. The communities involved don't speak with a single voice, have no natural constituency other than themselves, have been unable to even document that the system is failing. ARL has cer- tainly made a beginning, but its excellent effort is hampered by per- ceptions of elitism. Many in the publishing community are guilty of the same failing. What we need, of course, is common language, common goals, coalition efforts, a common forum. And hard numbers to demonstrate the problem. Where "proprietary" concerns still rule the day, this will not happen. As long as some participants in the system act as if it is business as usual, as long as we cannot speak with a united voice we are bystand- ers watching the ending not with a bang, but a whimper. Many players in the system know change is coming soon, planned or forced. Librarians have gotten the most publicity, but many others such as Brian Cox of Pergamon and Karen Hunter of Elsevier; Barbara Myers, a private consultant to the serials industry; Dick Rowe of Faxon; Knut Dorn of Harrassowitz; many publishers; and vendors, know the next few years are critical. In their own individual ways they have tried to prepare their companies, their colleagues, their customers. But indi- vidual efforts may even be counterproductive to the survival of the whole. Other members of this community seem completely oblivious to how serious the situation is. They assume that their "quality" is so outstanding they will survive relatively unscathed. The emphasis is changing from quality to utility, very rapidly. And when utility drives the system, quality becomes a poor second. Usefulness and "im- portance" are redefined under the fiscal knife which is not surgical, but more akin to the butcher's cleaver, the meat-axe, the broadsword. The demise will be slow and painful. There may be five years left for the game to play out. But I suspect that by March of 1992 most of the members of the community -- librarians, publishers, vendors and re- searchers -- will know change cannot come soon enough. What do we say to the general public, our legislators, our congress, the financers, the change makers, the news media, Dan Rather and Barbara Walters? Do we have anything to say to them? Ann Okerson, Pru Adler, Carol Henderson and I were asked two years ago by a congressional aide who previewed the ARL report, what do you want? And implied -- who is your constituency? What is your power base? Who do you speak for? How many people does this affect? What are the dimensions of the problem? What is the solution? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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 (ISSN: 1046-3410) is pub- lished by the editor as news is available. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, BITNET: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET; Faxon's DataLinx: TUTTLE; Paper mail: Seri- als Department, C.B. #3938 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3938; Telephone: 919 962-1067; FAX: 919 962-0484. Editorial Board: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Jerry Curtis (Springer Verlag New York), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), James Mouw (University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division). The Newsletter is available on BITNET and ALANET. EBSCO and Readmore Academic customers may re- ceive the Newsletter in paper format from EBSCO and Readmore, respec- tively. Back issues of the Newsletter are available electronically free of charge through BITNET from the editor. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ******ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE***ENDOFFILE******* ------------------------------ Cut here ------------------------------