Newsletter on Serial Pricing Issues 087 (July 4, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/nspi/nspi-ns087 ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO 87 -- July 4, 1993 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS 87.1 FROM THE EDITOR, Marcia Tuttle 87.2 THE ART AND SCIENCE OF JOURNAL PRICE SETTING, Janet Fisher 87.3 THE LAST -- AND OFFICIAL -- WORD ON _AMERICAN ZOOLOGIST_, Charlotte Mangum 87.4 SOCIETY MEMBER'S SUBSCRIPTIONS VS. LIBRARY HOLDINGS, Andy Stewart 87.5 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FACULTY RESPONSE TO THE SERIALS CRISIS 87.1 FROM THE EDITOR Marcia Tuttle, tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu. It was five years ago this week, in New Orleans (the Hilton Hotel lobby, to be specific), that the "Subcommittee on Serials Pricing Issues" had its organizational meeting. About eight months later the first issue of the _Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues_ appeared. This is the 124th issue. I continue to be amazed and very pleased at the number of direct subscribers to the newsletter, especially the rate at which the list continues to grow. Serials pricing is a very specialized topic, but it has a great impact on the jobs of so many of us. Here is the latest count of subscribers, broken down by country: Australia 38 Canada 73 Finland 1 Hong Kong 4 Ireland 2 Israel 5 Mexico 1 Netherlands 17 New Zealand 2 Puerto Rico 1 South Africa 2 Sweden 1 Switzerland 1 United Kingdom 45 United States 1,201 Total: 1,394 Thank you, contributors, readers, responders, and especially Editorial Board -- Deana, Jerry, Janet, Chuck, Danny, Jim, and Heather -- for five exciting, rewarding years. (I'll probably do this again in late February 1994.) Keep up the good work! 87.2 THE ART AND SCIENCE OF JOURNAL PRICE SETTING Janet Fisher, Associate Director for Journals Publishing, MIT Press, fisher@mitvma.mit.edu. In the course of my years in journals publishing, I have looked often and hard for easy formulaic answers to how to set journal prices. For a number of reasons, this is one of the most difficult things I do in my job. - There are no easy answers about how to do it. - We begin working on prices approximately eight months before they will go into effect. - We must have prices for next year to the subscription agents when we still have very incomplete information about how the journals are doing in the current year. - Because we do not raise prices in the middle of the year, we must be able to live with (and stay in business with) these prices. - We usually have very little information from journal editors about their possible need for increased pages or issues in the coming year, or changes in support from their institutions that would re- quire increased financial support from us. - We anticipate that our best-laid plans for staff changes, increases, equipment upgrades, etc., are likely to be pushed aside for urgent needs that arise in the coming year. - There are different levels of resistence to price increases based on which customers are involved. Luckily, we at MIT Press do not have the issue of currency fluctuations to contend with, in addition. In light of all these (and other) unknowns inherent in the setting of jour- nal prices, publishers naturally include a risk factor. It is, of course, possible to set prices early enough to comply with the request of the ARL Working Group on Firm Serial Prices. Unfortunately, some publishers may feel the need to consider more carefully padding their increase in order to hedge against the unknowns, as George Chressanthis suggested in the May 16, 1993 issue of the newsletter. It is a tradeoff that customers may have to bear in order to get a higher percentage of firm prices earlier in the year. I want to emphasize that publishers really have little control over the factors that drive prices higher. I personally feel pinched from all direc- tions right now: - None of my customers (libraries, individuals, students, journal editors, authors) want prices increased at all. - None of the institutions that partially support editorial offices want to increase their support at all. Instead, they want to de- crease support. - Internal staff and benefit costs continue to rise. - There is an increased need to upgrade equipment, network computers, upgrade software, and invest in new electronic products. - All this at a time when publishers are being told that increases above the increase in the CPI are not acceptable under any circum- stances. How are we as publishers to move into the electronic age? How are we as publishers to provide publishing outlets for newly established disciplines in order for scholars to publish their research? How can we as publishers continue to consider libraries our primary market when the number of copies sold to libraries is dropping due to sharing resources, interlibrary loan, and collective buying decisions? In the future we will have to consider other portions of our market as more and more important to our survival. We will make every attempt -- as we have in the last five years -- to have our 1994 prices in the hands of subscription agents by July 1. I am partic- ularly concerned about those journals that are self-published by academics that do not understand the system or do not have the computer systems to automate their circulation process. An educational effort aimed beyond the STM publishers is necessary to communicate how important this issue is to librarians and publishers alike. 87.3 THE LAST -- AND OFFICIAL -- WORD ON _AMERICAN ZOOLOGIST_ Charlotte Mangum, President-Elect, American Society of Zoologists, cpmang@mail.wm.edu. June 8, 1993 To: Serials Librarians Having been informed of the several messages in your newsletter about the price increase of ASZ's journal, the _American Zoologist_, I thought I should set the record straight. For about 30 years ASZ employed a staff to manage its business. When it became increasingly apparent that our financial affairs had become too complicated for this staff, we decided to contract our management to a pro- fessional firm. During the transfer we discovered that our affairs were seriously in disarray, and that we faced a shortfall of approximately $300,000. Ours is a century old society that has served the scholarly needs of its 3500 members quite well, and we determined to do everything in our power to prevent its dissolution. We liquidated our endowment, curtailed or postponed a number of activities, raised the registration fee for our annu- al meeting, raised membership dues, solicited contributions, wrote a pro- posal to the National Science Foundation to recover back overhead that we had apparently failed to charge, and made a one-time assessment of all faculty members ranging from a token for students to $200 for faculty. We were also advised by a number of commercial publishers that we were seriously undervaluing the _American Zoologist_, the fifth most often cited in its field. We voted to increase the institutional subscription from $140 to $400 per annum. A survey of some 30 journals published by scholarly societies around the world indicates to me that the new rate is not at all out of line. We also listened to the details of possible arrangements to lease the journal to commercial publishers. It is my fervent hope that this will prove to be unnecessary, and I personally regard it as a desperation step to be taken only if the alternative is dissolution of the Society. 87.4 SOCIETY MEMBER'S SUBSCRIPTIONS VS LIBRARY HOLDINGS Andy Stewart, University of Missouri--Rolla, astewart@umrvmb.umr.edu. [Andy's message is dated May 5, 1993. My apologies for the delay in transmitting it. -Ed.] In recent years, certain publishers have made a very clear distinction between journal subscriptions sent to individuals and society members and those sent to libraries. For example, in 1989 the American Chemical Society began imprinting the following warning on the cover of copies sent to ACS members: "Member's personal copy. Library use prohibited until 1994." It now appears that, for the ACS at least, while the warning no longer appears on journal covers (or anywhere else in a recent issue I searched), the policy remains in effect. I have not searched extensively, but under- stand that other society publishers have similar policies. My question, then, is this: Has anyone investigated the legal or ethical foundation upon which publishers base this distinction? More specifically, has a library experimented with simply ignoring this or similar publishers' policies? What if a faculty member just gave the "personal" copies to the library?? How would they be handled?? I realize I may be opening a can of worms just by raising these types of questions. Does anyone else have similar thoughts and/or concerns?? You may respond to me directly; your replies will be kept in confidence. If interest warrants, I will summarize results for the newsletter. 87.5 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FACULTY RESPONSE TO THE SERIALS CRISIS Resolution submitted by the Faculty Council on University Libraries to the university Senate. Used with permission of Betty Bengston, Direc- tor of Libraries, University of Washington. WHEREAS, the University of Washington Libraries has had to cancel subscrip- tions costing $330,000 per year for 1,550 serial titles in the last two years, and WHEREAS, the University libraries budget has not matched and is not antici- pated to match continued serials price increases, which often greatly ex- ceed the general inflation rate, and WHEREAS, new serial titles must continually be acquired for research and instructional programs, and WHEREAS, viable alternatives to ownership of journals are emerging as com- munications technologies become cheaper and more widespread and as elec- tronic journals and journal access and delivery service are established, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that future University Libraries serials cancel- lations, always to be taken in consultation with affected academic depart- ments, target those serials with exceptionally high cost, those with a history of very large price increases, or those whose use pattern does not justify the need for a physical copy on campus, especially in instances where alternative means of access are readily available, AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the University make vigorous efforts to explore all aspects of acquisition of library serials through electronic means. Passed, April 15, 1993 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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, Blackwell's CONNECT, and Readmore's ROSS. EBSCO customers may receive the Newsletter in paper format. 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. 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). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ *****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****