Newsletter on Serial Pricing Issues 100 (November 23, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/nspi/nspi-ns100 ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO 100 -- November 23, 1993 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS 100.1 JOURNAL PRICE INCREASES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, Fred Friend 100.2 QUESTION ABOUT GORDON & BREACH TITLES, Mary Page 100.3 LIBRARIAN RESPONSE TO MARY PAGE, Danny Jones 100.4 FAXON RESPONSE TO MARY PAGE, Ron Akie 100.5 COPYRIGHT FEES ESCALATING, Thomas Lindsey 100.6 UNCOVER ON COPYRIGHT FEES, Martha Whittaker 100.1 JOURNAL PRICE INCREASES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Fred Friend, University College London, ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk. For libraries in the UK the depressing story of journal prices rising above general inflation (now very low in the UK) continues. The situation is difficult to describe in terms of one percentage increase figure for the whole of the UK, because some libraries paid their 1993 subscriptions be- fore and some after the devaluation of sterling in September 1992, leading to them receiving higher or lower invoices for 1994 subscriptions - i.e. some of us are only paying now for the devaluation a year ago. However, even allowing for the devaluation factor, there is a consistent message in the reports I am receiving from SCONUL (the UK equivalent to ARL) members that 1994 prices are higher than can be explained by devaluation or by general inflation. In a survey of the situation faced by SCONUL mambers I asked for information on differences between various agents and publishers in relation to price rises above inflation. On agents no consistent pattern emerges, but in relation to publishers there is a consistent story: yet again it is a handful of the major commercial STM publishers who are rais- ing prices well above any inflation or currency fluctuation. I am not going to name names in a public document but nobody who has been following this dreadful story of exorbitant price rises over a number of years would be surprised by the names. There does this year seem to be even wider fluctua- tions than usual between the price rises on individual titles, and I for one, when I write to cancel a particular title, will make it very clear to the publisher why I am cancelling. One final important point: our evidence is that there is no linkage between firm prices and higher prices. The prices we analysed at UCL do not show that publishers have raised prices to compensate for firm prices. It is just that they have raised prices. 100.2 QUESTION ABOUT GORDON & BREACH TITLES Mary Page, Rutgers University, mpage@zodiac.rutgers.edu. [Message first posted on SERIALST. -ed.] I've been trying to find out what's going on with a couple of very expen- sive Gordon & Breach titles. It's been awhile since we've received any issues, and our claims have gone unanswered. Today, I spoke with one of our serials vendors and heard the most astounding story (even by G&B stand- ards). Apparently, other clients are having the same problem, and the vend- or has withheld payments in an effort to get some cooperation from G&B. In retaliation (and this is the astounding part), G&B has threatened to impose a 5% surcharge on the vendor's clients, unless they pay up by December 31. We are waiting for more details before we make any decisions, but it looks as though the choices are: pay up to avoid the surcharge (and hope that they actually publish and distribute what we've paid for); hold out to see if we can force G&B's hand; or cancel altogether. 100.3 LIBRARIAN RESPONSE TO MARY PAGE Danny Jones, University of Texas Health Sciences Center, jones@uthscsa.edu. [Message first posted on SERIALST. Edited for newsletter. -ed.] I was visiting our domestic vendor last week and heard a slightly different version of the story that has been related. What I recall hearing, and this topic came up as an aside to other discussions so I may not have the story right, was that after Dec 31 G&B will increase its prices. So, vendors are seeking direction from their clients: should they renew subscriptions at the current price or should they hold on renewals for journals that are behind schedule, which may mean that the library will eventually have to pay more for the subscription once G&B finally supplies what you've already paid for. Perhaps we could hear something for the record from a vendor to explain what they have been instructed by G&B. We are a relatively small library, fewer than 2500 biomedical subscrip- tions, and handle titles running seriously behind schedule as follows. If we must renew the title we instruct our vendor to hold on renewing with the publisher until we notify them. If we have paid for vol 33-35 for example, we annotate our checkin record for the title to notify the vendor to renew when vol 35 is complete. Once vol 35 is complete we notify the vendor and expect an invoice for the title beginning with vol 36. (With this publisher all sorts of variations occur, but for the sake of an example, let's keep it simple.) In the biosciences, where current information is critical, a journal which cannot publish on schedule can reasonably be considered a troubled title. This has been one criterion we have used routinely over the past 8 years for recommending titles for cancellation. In most cases our faculty and other users have agreed with this position and such titles have been cancelled. In handling such journals in this way we accept that we may eventually pay more for them, but from experience, that may be a concern for next fiscal year. In the meantime, let the publisher use the money we've already paid them to produce the material we ordered. 100.4 FAXON RESPONSE TO MARY PAGE Ron Akie, Publisher Services, Faxon Company, akie@faxon.com. Gordon & Breach sent a letter to all subscribers advising that renewal invoices were sent to all agents for 1994 volumes. Invoices not paid by the end of December would be re-invoiced at a new price -- potentially 2 - 5 % higher than the original price. It is important to note that this is not a surcharge or penalty, but a price increase after that date (some earlier messages on the network were unclear on this point). We attempted to negotiate with G&B to hold the increases on titles that were delayed. G&B did not agree and requires payment on all 1994 volumes by December 31 to obtain the current rate. Compounding the situation, G&B changed its cancellation policy recently. They now will accept no cancellation once payment for a volume has been made. In order to give clients the opportunity to make a renewal or cancellation decision before paying out these funds, Faxon has invoiced all clients for these volumes. We have sent a letter to each client advising them of the situation and explaining their three options: 1. accept the invoice at the current price; 2. cancel their order; 3. ask us not to pay the invoice now and risk paying a higher price after December 31. Our objective as an agent here is to give our clients the decision of whether to pay for a volume potentially far in advance of actual publica- tion or to risk paying a higher price at a later date. This appears to be the only way to protect clients' interests as much as possible while adher- ing to the publisher's new policies. I assure you that we have made extra- ordinary efforts with this publisher to convince them to be more flexible, but they have indicated that their policy is firm. Please let me know if anyone would like more information and feel free to distribute this as a public response. 100.5 COPYRIGHT FEES ESCALATING Thomas K. Lindsey, University of Texas at Arlington, LINDSEY@library.uta.edu. In doing an article search of the CARL UnCover system this morning, I re- marked to myself that quite a number of copyright fees seemed to be higher than CARL's service fee of $6.50. One journal charges $30.41 per article; _Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory_ 1992-93 edition reports that the *subscription price* is lower than this. A number of journals, most of which were published by Haworth Press, had a note with the UnCover entry that CARL could not supply a copy of the arti- cle. The _Bulletin of the Medical Library Association_ also had this nota- tion. These two situations seem to be quite different from last year when we began using UnCover. I started to wonder if anyone was tracking the rate and frequency of changes in copyright fees in ways similar to the methods used to track serial prices, and what results were being found. I contacted our Interlibrary Loan Librarian, Ms. Rachel Robbins, about tracking of copyright fees. Her reply included the statement that one pub- lication [not named] charged a $10 per page fee, and that the library had paid $100 in royalties for one article. Another part of her reply says, "The title _Water Science and Technology_ had pretty reasonable fees 4 months ago; however, I found that their charges have gone up to $24 an article since then. We had to pay over $450 in royalties just for articles ordered from that title...." I expressed my concern to her that relying on "access" to information by obtaining electronically stored copies from databanks might put libraries at even greater risk than we now must cope with. (Our budgets for access to information could become as uncontrollable as health insurance and medical costs now appear to be.) I did not talk with her about the following scenario, but it would be pos- sible for service providers to change their prices as many times as they can continuously throughout the year to cope with demand and popularity of any publication title or even an article from a title. Service providers would not even have to tell us about the changes until they occurred, or they could post it as a notice at the top of the signon message each day. (How many people _really_ read the messages from Dialog, STN, and other database searching services when they sign on, especially when the charge is in the 50 cents to $1.00 per minute range? I do not think that I have seen anyone consider these possible "side ef- fects (maybe it should be front effects)" of relying on remote retrieval or delayed access to serial publications and other information sources. Is there anyone keeping track of the percentage rate change and frequency of change of copyright clearance fees? If not, should it be done, and can it be done now? 100.6 UNCOVER RESPONSE ON COPYRIGHT FEES Martha Whittaker, The UnCover Company, mwhittak@carl.org. The copyright royalty fees collected by The UnCover Company on individual articles exactly reflect the payments made to the Copyright Clearance Cen- ter, or to the publisher directly. UnCover neither sets these fees, nor retains any portion of them. We are absolutely scrupulous in our observance of intellectual property rights, and it has been our policy to follow the publishers' wishes on copyright to the letter. We are aware that the general trend in copyright fees has been upward -- and in a few cases, fees have escalated dramatically. In our conversations with publishers, we try to make the point that a high copyright fee can be a double edged sword. A per article fee that exceeds or equals the cost of an annual subscription is probably not going to protect the subscription. Instead, it will simply discourage the use of the article through services such as UnCover. Many publishers are coming to the conclusion that access to individual articles is not necessarily a threat, and that the collection of reasonable fees can actually become a new revenue stream for them. UnCover is concerned that while we rigorously adhere to publisher require- ments regarding copyright, not all of the other services do. Some publish- ers have expressly forbid UnCover to supply articles from their journals, and yet take no action against other services that continue to deliver from these titles. This tacit approval is in fact an unfair restraint of trade. We have expressed our concerns to the American Association of Publishers (AAP) and in open forum discussions. The playing field must be level if competition among document suppliers is to be fair. Fair competition is ultimately to the benefit of the library community and other consumers of information. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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 27514-8890; Telephone: 919 962-1067; FAX: 919 962-4450. Editorial Board: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Jerry Curtis (Springer Verlag New York), Janet Fisher (MIT Press), Fred Friend (University College, London), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), Daniel Jones (University of Texas Health Science Center), James Mouw (University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division). The Newsletter is avail- able on the Internet, Blackwell's CONNECT, and Readmore's ROSS. EBSCO cus- tomers 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*****