Newsletter on Serial Pricing Issues 104 (January 30, 1994) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/nspi/nspi-ns104 ISSN: 1046-3410 NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES NO 104 -- January 30, 1994 Editor: Marcia Tuttle CONTENTS 104.1 ACRL JOURNAL COSTS IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES DISCUSSION GROUP, Jim Mouw 104.2 _JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF TOXICOLOGY_, Diane Appleton and Sandy Gurshman 104.3 _CHICAGO JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE_, Janet Fisher 104.5 FROM THE MAILBOX 104.1 ACRL JOURNAL COSTS IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES DISCUSSION GROUP Jim Mouw, University of Chicago, mouw@midway.uchicago.edu. At ALA Midwinter the ACRL Journal Costs in Academic Libraries Discussion Group will address the topic "When is a list price really a list price, and how are they set?" Time and Location: Saturday, February 5 - 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. Sheraton Grande, room Grande 1 We will have three speakers. The first, Michele Crump of the University of Florida will present her compilation of data gathered from 15 research libraries. Each library contributed 1992 information giving list price (as reported on suppler invoice) and actual price paid for approximately 100 STM titles. This research is in pursuit of the Aqueduct Action Agenda item 14 "The Aqueduct group will compile and produce a benchmark list of 100 journal titles for comparison of prices paid to various subscription agents and directly to the publishers." The other two speakers, Tina Feick of B.H. Blackwell Periodicals Division and Ron Akie of The Faxon Company, will address the same topic from a dif- ferent angle, talking about how list prices are published and conveyed to dealers, and specifically about reasons for differences in list prices. They will also present information on recent pricing trends including the effect of libraries' request for early firm pricing information. For more information contact Jim Mouw at mouw@midway.uchicago.edu or 312 702-8767. 104.2 _JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF TOXICOLOGY_ Diane Appleton, The Faxon Company, APPLETON@FAXON.COM; and Sandy Gurshman, Readmore, Gurshman@readmore.com. [Appleton's message appeared first in SERIALST. -ed.] >From Diane Appleton: We would like to alert subscribers to the _Journal of the American College of Toxicology_ that this title has not ceased publication, but is being published by Raven Press beginning with Volume 13, 1994. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publisher of the journal through Volume 12, received the 1994 renew- als, but did not transfer the payments or subscription records to Raven. Instead, the publisher sent a letter to subscribers announcing that they would not publish the journal in 1994, and offered to substitute another of their publications for the 1994 subscription payment. Subscribers were not told that this journal was continuing to be published. Because Raven Press was unable to obtain the subscription records or pay- ments for 1994 from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., the new publisher contacted subscription agents in December to obtain their lists of clients subscrib- ing to the journal. To ensure that subscribers do not miss any issues of the journal, Raven is fulfilling each of these subscriptions even though they have not received any of the payments. Mary Ann Liebert is denying subscription agency requests for refunds of the 1994 payments for this journal. Without a refund, agents are unable to pay Raven Press for their clients' 1994 subscriptions. However, Ms. Liebert did advise a Faxon Publisher Services staff member that refunds will be given if requested by the individual subscriber. We are in the process of advis- ing our clients of this, and wanted to advise SERIALST members as well. Subscribers who want to continue to receive the _Journal of the American College of Toxicology_ should request refunds from the former publisher, and if subscribed to through an agent, sent to your agent so that Raven can be paid. We applaud Raven's decision to continue providing the journal to all subscribers while they attempt to resolve this situation. ---------- >From Sandy Gurshman: The _Journal of the American College of Toxicology_ is alive and well. Beginning with Volume 13, 1994, the journal will be switched from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., to Raven Press. This is a common practice, as many societies contract out their publications to various publishers. What is somewhat abnormal in this event is the degree of effort the previous publisher is making to hinder the smooth transition of the orders. In November, Liebert sent a letter to subscribers saying that they were no longer publishing this title. Subscribers were told that their orders would be fulfilled by Liebert's journal, _In Vitro Toxicology_. According to a representative, they consider _In Vitro_ to be "a better journal." The letter states, "I believe you will be even more satisfied with _In Vitro Toxicology_." To add to the confusion, Liebert has refused to refund agents who have prepaid them for the journal. Liebert will refund ONLY IF the subscriber individually requests the refund. Raven Press has agreed to supply 1994 issues while we work to recover the moneys paid to Liebert. Readmore has entered the orders with Raven, but wanted to report the situa- tion so librarians would not be confused by misleading information. In our industry it is not common practice for one publisher to try to dis- rupt collection development activities in the library. We join other agents in bringing this to librarians' attention and in trusting that this will not become a common practice. 104.3 _CHICAGO JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE_ Janet Fisher, MIT Press, FISHER@mitvma.mit.edu. The MIT Press and MIT Libraries are pleased to announce a new electronic journal beginning publication this spring -- _Chicago Journal of Theoreti- cal Computer Science_. We believe this journal, with the same attention to peer-review and editorial quality that the Press applies to its twenty- eight print journals, will be important to the scholarly communication industry for several reasons: * high-quality, backed by standard publisher * incorporates the advantages of the electronic medium that scholars need * gives librarians an electronic publication purchased by standard subscription procedures and available through vendors * liberal use guidelines for libriarians * commitment to inclusion in traditional indexing and abstracting services * commitment to archiving by agreement with the MIT Libraries and a back-up archive We anticipate publishing 15 articles in the first calendar year (the equiv- alent of a standard tri-annual publication), and subscriptions will be available for $125 for institutions and $30 for individuals for a calendar year period. Subscribers will receive a notice each time an article is published and instructions on how to retrieve the article from the Press's FTP site. Because of the need to transmit math, graphics, and symbols, articles will be available in LaTeX source (which is ubiquitous in the field of computer science and, thus, preferred by individuals) and Post- Script (which is preferred by students and libraries). Hardcopy of articles will be available from the MIT Libraries Document Services Department. We have budgeted for subscription levels in the first three years of 200 Institutions and 150 Individuals in 1994; 300 Institutions and 200 Individ- uals in 1995; and 350 Institutions and 250 Individuals in 1996. We projec- ted no income initially in traditional categories such as back issue sales, list rental, offprints, and advertising. Production expenses are predomi- nantly in initial macro development for formatting electronic text files received from authors; clean-up of text (plant cost, what used to be called "typesetting"); and copyediting. Marketing expenses are approximately half of what we usually spend to launch a journal, but are still substantial. Under our current budget we reach break-even in the third year, with sub- stantial losses in the first and second years. The anticipated subscription levels reflect our concern that many libraries will not want to subscribe to a journal published in this form. However, we hope to find ourselves happily wrong, so that we can adjust the price ac- cordingly. We regret that the differential between the individual and li- brary rate is so large, but it is necessary to price the individual sub- scriptions low initially in order to overcome reluctance to purchase an electronic journal. We hope this journal will allow the academic community and the publishing community an opportunity to test another model for electronic journals and their potential for resolving some of the current issues in scholarly pub- lishing. And we believe the subscription-based model, rather than pay-per- view or transactional pricing model, is the best one for publishers and librarians alike. We are publishing this journal without difficult-to-ad- minister restrictions (e.g. site licenses) with the assumption that librar- ians and individuals will be willing to pay for what they use. Having paid a subscription price, we believe libraries should be able to use the jour- nal as they do paper journals: * store articles electronically on library server and allow local community to print or download copies * print out and store articles on library shelves * print out articles and allow users to take from library * print out articles and store on reserve if requested by professor * share print or electronic copies of articles with other libraries, provided that the same rules are followed as apply under Section 108 of the Copyright Law to interlibrary loan of print materials * place on campus network for access by local users * convert to another medium (i.e. microfilm/fiche/CD) for storage If you have questions or would like additional information, please contact Janet Fisher, Journals Manager, MIT Press (Fisher@mitvma.mit.edu) or Carol Fleishauer, Associate Director for Collection Development, MIT Libraries (Fleish@mitvma.mit.edu). 104.4 FROM THE MAILBOX The mailbox is: tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu. >From Joan Hill, National Research Council of Canada, joan@journals.lan.nrc.ca: I noticed that the e-mail address for CISTI's document delivery (Item 102.4) was incorrect. Instead of nrc it had nra. Correct e-mail is cisti.docdel@nrc.ca ---------- >From Dana Roth, Caltech, DZRLIB@ROMEO.CALTECH.EDU: A recent example of what may be happening with firm pricing occured when I simultaneously received ads for _Vitamin E: its usefullness in health and in curing diseases_ from both Karger and the Japan Publications Trading Co. Karger's prices: $198.50 SFr 248 ($176.35 on 1/4/94) DM 297 ($179.09 on 1/4) compare very unfavorably with JPTC's quote of Y13,000 ($119.78 on 1/4/94). Has anyone looked at firm prices and done the conversions from DM & SFr for 10/93 exchange rates (which is when we begin paying for the next calendar year subscriptions)? The recent rise in the US$ suggests that libraries are probably coming out on the short end of the stick again. ---------- Also from Dana Roth: In answer to Batya Malik's question regarding G&B's policy of sending out invoices far in advance, your readers might be interested in knowing that Plenum also seems to have this policy for their translation journals. At Caltech, we have begun carefully checking invoices from both of these pub- lishers and delaying payment until it is appropriate. This is something Faxon should look into and, as part of their service, be sure libraries are not paying years in advance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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*****