Newsletter on Serial Pricing Issues 077 (April 5, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/nspi/nspi-ns077 ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO 77 -- April 5, 1993 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS 77.1 PUBLISHERS' PROMOTIONS, Dave Fisher 77.2 FIXED EXCHANGE RATES, Keith Stetson and Ron Akie 77.3 IMPACT OF CURRENCY FLUCTUATIONS, Bernard Naylor 77.4 FROM THE MAILBOX 77.1 PUBLISHERS' PROMOTIONS Dave Fisher, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, dave_fisher@ucsdlibrary.ucsd.edu. RE: "FROM THE EDITOR" in NEWSLETTER no. 73 (March 14) on Pergamon's PLUS, Gordon & Breach's "Negative page charges," and Bowker's "Library Bond Pro- gram." The library marketplace is not a supermarket and librarians should not be so naive as to believe that any publisher or vendor who uses coupons or other gimmicks to promote sales is not making up for the added costs of these promotions elsewhere. In Bowker's case why don't they just come out and price each product fairly, then initiate a deposit account program that pays a predetermined amount of interest against the average remaining monthly (or daily) balance until the funds are expended on purchases or renewals. Bowker pays their banker less for borrowing and passes on a por- tion of the savings to the consumer and everybody realizes real, not imag- inary savings. The groups that Bowker is targeting for these "Bonds" should be donating money directly to a library for unrestricted use rather than bankrolling Bowker. There's something very self-serving about all three of these pro- grams. I still haven't forgotten Bowker's old "Bowker Bonus 1" program which granted certificates each time we purchased a Bowker product, but which could only be redeemed against new, first time orders. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library maintains standing orders for several Bowker products, but new products from Bowker in the fields in which we are interested are extremely rare. I still have a folder of unused "Bonus" (dare I say bogus?) credits. I resent the fact that we subsidized this program for the benefit of more broadly focussed collections where there were many more opportunities to apply these credits. This program penalized Bowker's standing order customers, who were their bread and butter, and rewarded those who were paying Bowker for only a few products and wanted to pick up some new titles. I'd like to convey a resounding "Nay!" to the industry to any more of these off the wall schemes which serve only to fluff the resumes of marketing staffs apparently too far removed from the realities of Acquisitions Li- brarianship to make sound judgements as to what their target audience will appreciate. The Pergamon and Gordon & Breach schemes present yet another set of issues which should be addressed. I presume the two are similar although I have seen only the details of Pergamon's PLUS in PERGAMON JOURNAL INFORMATION, NO.9 (Feb. '93). Pergamon will grant one credit worth 25 pounds sterling to the author of each article acepted for publication in any Pergamon journal. The author may then designate any library, [preferably -ed.] from a list provided by Pergamon, of libraries in underdeveloped nations or eastern Europe to be the recipient of a credit which can only be applied towards the purchase of a Pergamon journal of that library's choosing. My cynic's mind tells me that the overhead costs for these programs will be passed on to their western customers who will subsidize these plans with tax dollars earmarked for educational purposes. No publisher's customers should be placed in the position of extending foreign aid as the cost of doing business, no matter how lofty-sounding the purpose, especially when that aid is sponsored and controlled by entities seeking to enhance their own sales and profits to the exclusion of all others. If anyone out there feels these programs are truly beneficial to libraries I'd like to hear from you with answers as to how and why. As Scott Pieten- burg reaffirmed in his commentary in this same issue (#73) on the buyout of Majors Subscriptions Services by EBSCO, we live in a profit oriented world. That being the case, does anyone truly believe that any of these players is giving us anything they haven't already found a way to make up for else- where? Promotional programs add to overhead costs which have to be made up in the pricing structure somewhere. I'd rather have the assurance that I was paying a fair market price and be done with it without having to first jump through a few hoops. As long as there are games to be played and priz- es to be won there have to be more losers than winners or the sponsors couldn't afford to stage them. 77.2 FIXED EXCHANGE RATES Keith Stetson and Ron Akie. >From Keith Stetson, Fairfield University, kstetson@fair1.bitnet. The EBSCO "Stronger Dollar" press release published in Newsletter NO 76 prompts me to bring up a topic which has been on my mind during the regular discussions of fixed exchange rates. What is to prevent a library or agent from paying an invoice in the foreign currency at the exchange rate pre- vailing at the time? We have a number of direct Pergamon titles. We all know that this publisher fixed the pound to dollar rate at $1.90 for 1993 subscriptions. We paid our invoice in pounds at a rate of $1.5874, saving roughly 16%. The only additional cost to us was the modest fee that the University's bank charges to issue a check in pounds. ----- >From Ron Akie, Deputy Director, Publisher Services, Faxon: This is not an easy question, but it is a very significant one. Some European publishers as we know establish a fixed currency exchange rate during renewal season in order to provide pricing stability in the marketplace. Otherwise, each subscriber could presumably pay a different price depending upon the date they paid. To answer the question "What is to prevent a library or agent from paying at the prevailing rate..." the sim- ple answer is that it is up to the publisher. Most leading agents agree with the publishers on a fixed rate as explained above in order to provide stability for their clients, so paying at a different rate would violate those agreements. We should all note here that in some years clients win and in some years they lose depending upon where currency markets move. This is precisely the reason for setting a fixed rate. In effect, publish- ers who set a fixed exchange rate are doing exactly the same as publishers who simply set their U.S. price in U.S. dollars. Libaries who desire to order directly can pay at the market rate as long as the publisher agrees to that. One of the many reasons libraries have used agents, however, is precisely so that they do not have to deal directly with publishers, write individual checks, follow currency markets, etc. It is, nevertheless, a choice that libraries can exercise. 77.3 IMPACT OF CURRENCY FLUCTUATIONS Bernard Naylor, University Librarian, University of Southampton, England, B.Naylor@southampton.ac.uk) Librarians on the west side of the Atlantic pond, currently starting to rejoice at the prospect of greater stability in journals prices because of the increased strength of the US dollar, might give a thought to their British counterparts. We are currently facing a dire prospect in 1993/4 because of last autumn's collapse in the value of the pound sterling. Sub- scription increases overall next year are predicted to be in the 20 percent range (with "ordinary" UK inflation below 4 per cent) and many libraries are planning further major cancellation programmes. In asking you to give us thought, I am not asking principally for sympathy (nice; but not bankable at Blackwells or Elsevier!) but for serious concern about an aspect of the journals problem which has had little or no notice. This might be described as "the see-saw effect" of currency fluctuations and it goes like this. While the dollar was down, you were paying premium prices for journals charged in European currencies. You were driven into cancellation pro- grammes and these fed through into subsequent journals prices as the total numbers of subscriptions declined. Now that the pound is down, we are pay- ing premium prices for US journals, cancelling titles and giving a further downward twist to the spiral. I think it is quite likely that some of the "propensity to purchase" (see! we all talk econo-jargon now!) disappears completely at every turn of the screw even though the subsequent recovery of any currency provides an opportunity to get back into some subscriptions recently cancelled. Typical of a Brit, I can see a problem, but at present I can't see an an- swer. Can any of your readers "go the extra mile" and tell me whether we can discount this effect somehow? 77.4 FROM THE MAILBOX The mailbox is: tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu. >From James Mouw, University of Chicago, mouw@midway.uchicago.edu: The most recent issue (winter 1993) of the YBP Dialogue [from Yankee Book Peddler] includes listings for 1991 and 1992 publisher output for selected University Presses and for Selected Trade and Professional Publishers. While these lists give information for book output, many of these titles are in series and should be of at least peripheral interest to serials librar- ians. Average prices are always difficult to compare since many factors can affect this statistic: subject matter, size of volume, type of edition, etc. However it is most interesting to note the publishers whose average price in 1992 is over $100.00. University presses: none Trade and professional: American Institute of Physics - $101.48 E.J. Brill - $103.49 CRC Press - $110.75 De Gruyter - $124.18 Marcel Dekker - $135.30 Elevier - $195.74 Gordon & Breach - $103.67 Kluwer - $127.60 Pennwell Books - $197.07 Pergamon Press - $177.11 VCH - $117.23 average price for all Trade and Professional - $51.21 some of these names sound just a litle familiar, don't they? ----- >From Carol Schaafsma, University of Hawaii, CAROLS@UHUNIX.BITNET (from SERIALST): I have just read the issue of NSPI which contains the first estimates of 1994 price increases and am grateful for the information. If prices do go down, or even slow the rate of increase, we'll all be happy. However, also this morning I heard on the TV news that the yen today is trading at the lowest rate ever recorded for $/yen exchange. We subscribe to approximately $40/50,000 worth of Japanese titles. Does anyone else have a substantial number of Japanese titles and, if so, have you figured out why this curren- cy is going in the opposite direction and how to factor this information into the US/Europe figures which are more generally promulgated? ----- >From Bill Miller, Florida Atlantic University, miller@acc.fau.edu: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps you are interested in this e-mail message I recently sent to Tim Turner, my Faxon rep., for the newsletter. Dear Tim: It was good to meet you at ALA; best of luck with your new duties. This message is an early notice to publishers, through FAXON and you, that with this Fall's serials renewals, FAU will not be able to renew any seri- als titles which do not have firm pricing. In a similar vein, we will not be able to pay any supplemental charges which publishers wish to levy after prices are set for the year. With our budgetary constraints, we simply cannot place ourselves in a position any longer in which we do not know what our serials costs are until late in the academic year. We think it is reasonable to inform publishers that they need to state a price and then stick to it for the year; this is normal business practice in almost any business we know of. I look forward to working with you this year. Sincerely, +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Statements of fact and opinion appearing in the _Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues_ are made on the responsibility of the authors alone, and do not imply the endorsement of the editor, the editorial board, or the Uni- versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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 published by the editor through the Office of Information Technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as news is available. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, Internet: tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu; Paper mail: Serials Department, CB #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), Janet Fisher (MIT Press), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State Universi- ty), Daniel Jones (University of Texas Health Science Center), James Mouw (University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Divi- sion). The Newsletter is available on the Internet and Blackwell's CONNECT. EBSCO and Readmore Academic customers may receive the Newsletter in paper format from these companies. Back issues of the Newsletter are available electronically. To get a list of available issues send a message to LISTSERV@GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU saying INDEX PRICES. To retrieve a specific issue, the message should read: GET PRICES PRICES.xx (where "xx" is the number of the issue). To subscribe to the newsletter, send a message to LISTSERV@GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU saying SUBSCRIBE PRICES [YOUR NAME]. Be sure to send that message to the listserver and not to Prices. You must include your name. To unsubscribe (no name required in message), you must send the message from the e-mail address by which you are subscribed. If you have problems, please contact the editor. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****