Newsletter on Serial Pricing Issues 092 (August 17, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/nspi/nspi-ns092 ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO 92 -- August 17, 1993 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS 92.1 1994 PUBLISHER PRICE LISTS, Sandy Gurshman 92.2 STRONGER DOLLAR COULD SIGNIFICANTLY OFFSET EUROPEAN JOURNAL PRICE INCREASES FOR 1994, Laura Ralstin 92.3 SLOW ASTROPHYSICS JOURNALS, Nancy S. Klath 92.4 FROM THE MAILBOX 92.1 1994 PUBLISHER PRICE LISTS Sandy Gurshman, Readmore, Gurshman@Readmore.Com. For the past year, the ARL has campaigned to convince publishers to produce their price lists earlier in the year. This campaign appears to have influ- enced many publishers to move up their schedules. Readmore supports the efforts of the ARL Working Committee on Firm Serials Prices, and we are pleased to report that by July 31 we had received price lists from a sig- nificant number of major publishers that we monitor. Of these publisher lists, 17 were received at least 3 weeks sooner than in 1993: Academic Press (US) Allen Press American Medical Assn American Physiological Soc American Psychological Soc American Psychiatric Press Baltzer Biosis Butterworth/Heinemann Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Cambridge University Press Chapman & Hall de Gruyter Elsevier Lawrence Erlbaum Haworth Heldref Human Sciences Press (Plenum) IEEE ISI Institute of Physics Johns Hopkins University Press Karger Medical Letters MIT Press Mosby Yearbook Oryx Oxford Univ Press PDR Pergamon Plenum Raven Royal Society of Chemistry Scandinavian Univ Press University of California Press University of Toronto Press Williams & Wilkins A few issues ago, there was a list of publishers' projected dates from John Cox. Nineteen of the publishers listed have met or beaten their deadlines. We are following up with publishers whose lists we have not yet received, and we will be updating this list as the season progresses. 92.2 STRONGER DOLLAR COULD SIGNIFICANTLY OFFSET EUROPEAN JOURNAL PRICE INCREASES FOR 1994 Laura Ralstin, EBSCO Corporate Communications, Birmingham AL, 205 991- 1492. The recent strengthening of the U.S. dollar against major European curren- cies could significantly offset the predicted 10.5 percent publisher price increases for 1994 subscriptions. Since November of last year, when most publishers were paid for 1993 subscriptions, the dollar has gained an aver- age of 9.43 percent against a composite of European currencies including the British pound, Dutch guilder, French franc, German mark and Swiss franc. Individual changes in currency rates since last November are as follows: Approximate Approximate Country % of Change Predicted Cost Increase of Origin Currency 11/2/92 - 08/5/93* for 1994 Subscriptions Great Britain pound 2.04 8.46 The Netherlands guilder 8.80 1.70 France franc 11.22 -.72 Germany mark 8.89 1.61 Switzerland franc 7.45 3.05 *Change in currency per U.S. dollar. Based on the current value of the dollar (as of Aug. 5), libraries buying with U.S. dollars could pay 8.46 percent more for British journals; about one percent less for French journals; 1.61 percent more for German jour- nals; 1.70 percent more for Dutch titles; and 3.05 percent more for Swiss journals than they paid for 1993 subscriptions. (These changes apply only to journals for which the publisher does not set a fixed currency conver- sion rate or a U.S. dollar selling price.) However, the recent relaxation of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) causes greater uncertainty about the final buying power of the dollar when European publishers are paid for 1994 subscriptions. The Exchange Rate Mechanism has been changed to allow European currencies (for countries belonging to the European Monetary System) to fluctuate more independently of each other. Therefore, more dramatic changes in the value of these cur- rencies are likely to be seen this year. The British pound, which is now fairly strong, will not be affected by the change in the ERM since the United Kingdom does not belong to the European Monetary System. U.S. libraries should see little or no price increase for titles from publishers setting fixed conversion or U.S. dollar selling prices. Effective with 1994 subscriptions, Elsevier/Pergamon has changed its policy from that of setting a fixed conversion rate to establishing a U.S. dollar selling price and has recently announced that U.S. libraries should see no price increase for Elsevier and Pergamon journals, based on the 1994 U.S. dollar prices. 92.3 SLOW ASTROPHYSICS JOURNALS Nancy S. Klath, Princeton University Libraries, nsklath@firestone.Princeton.edu. In innocently following up on the non-receipt of a journal we recently uncovered the following situation. _Astronomical and Astrophysical Trans- actions_ is the journal of the Soviet Astronomical Society, but published by Gordon and Breach. When volume 1, number 1 came out in 1991 we decided to subscribe to it. We paid $271 for volume 1 in June of 1992 and $310 for volume 2 in April of 1993. Although we received all of volume 1 we received no issues of volume 2 despite repeated claims and finally cancelled the journal in July of 1993 when informed that volumes 3 through 5 would cost $1,011. We became curious about the experience of other libraries and asked subscribers who look at P-A-M NET to list their receipts. When we matched our receipts against those of five other subscribing libraries (all who responded), we discovered that not one of us has a complete set, and no one of the six of us has volume 3, number 3 if it was ever published. We are now in the process of getting each institution to supply film of a subset of their holdings so that we can all have a complete copy of the journal we all paid for! Bemused by this experience, our Astrophysics Librarian was prompted to look more closely at other Gordon and Breach titles, and as a result we are cancelling _Astrophysical Letters & Communications_ (for which we paid $188 for volume 28 in May of 1987 and have yet to receive volume 28, number 6) and _Fundamentals of Cosmic Physics_ (for which we paid $437 for volume 15 and $437 for volume 16 in September of 1989; the last received issue was volume 15, number 2, received in January of 1993). This leaves us with one Gordon and Breach title in Astrophysics that we might bring ourselves to cancel within the next year, especially given the difficulties in getting hold of its volumes 13 and 14. 92.4 FROM THE MAILBOX The mailbox is: tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu. >From Elisabeth Dolby, Queensland University of Technology, E.DOLBY@qut.edu.au: Your newsletter is very interesting. We note that American librarians are just now coming to terms with currency fluctuations which have been a problem in Australia for ten years or so. In Australia, our problems are worse as the United States dollar is a world leader in international currencies, whereas the Australian dollar is a very speculative currency. Over 90% of all transactions involving the Aus- tralian dollar are not for legitimate trading purposes but are for speculation which makes us one of the world's most traded currencies. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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*****