The news is coming in so fast the editor hasn't had much time to think! I am closing out this issue and sending it, even though I have more information in hand. But issue no. 17 is practically on your screen right now ....
16.2 LEARNED JOURNALS SEMINAR: PRELIMINARY
INFORMATION
Mike Keller, Yale University Library, BITNET:
MKELLER@YALEVM.
The sixth annual Learned Journals Seminar, sponsored by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers and the Serials Publishers Executive of the Publishers' Association, will be held in London at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on Friday, March 30, 1990. Seven papers are to be presented:
Paper 1, by Brigid Ogilvie of the Wellcome Trust, speaking for the funding agencies: The Grant Giving Body.
Paper 2, probably by a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry: The Use of the Literature.
Paper 3, by an editor from a learned society: Editorial Policy; Learned Society.
Paper 4, by an editor from a commercial publisher: Editorial Policy; Commercial Publisher.
Paper 5, by a publisher from a learned society: Economics; Learned Society.
Paper 6, by a publisher from a commercial firm: Economics; Commercial Publisher.
Paper 7, by Mike Keller: Selection and Acquisition.
"The papers are intended to highlight for discussion some of the matters raised by the ARL report without being a specific defence of nor attack on the report itself. It is hoped that the relationship between need and funds will be discussed together with standards and costs in publishing."
MY paper will represent the "carrefour." "The dark corners will arise when the expectation of equivalence of problems in publishing between the two sides is not quite equivalent. The commercial publishers will suggest that there is no difference between the two sides whilst the learned societies will be aware of differences but cynical of the naive exaggeration of the report."
The audience will number between 90 and 130 and will consist of senior publishers, agents, and librarians from around the world, though with a strong European bias. It has been the policy of the seminar sponsors to waive the registration fee for American librarians.
16.3 UNITED KINGDOM SERIALS GROUP: 13TH ANNUAL
CONFERENCE AND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Marcia Tuttle
The 13th UKSG conference will be held April 2 - 5 at the University of Southampton. Registration is L120.75 or $200 for members and L143,75 or $237 for nonmembers. The fee includes lodging and meals, as well as all other conference activities. The program is as follows:
Monday, April 2:
Registration
Opening of exhibition and sherry reception
Buffet dinner
Concert of classical music
Tuesday, April 3:
Keynote Address: "Serials: Publishing for No-One?" Bernard Naylor,
Southampton University
Current Dilemmas:
"Why I Publish," Tony Burkett, Loughborough University (academic);
Craig Thornber, ICI Pharmaceuticals (research chemist); and Robert
Welham, Royal Society of Chemistry (learned society publisher)
"How I Cope," David Baker, University of East Anglia (academic
librarian); and Roger Brown, Beecham Group (industrial librarian)
New Applications:
"Serials and Document Supply: Is There a BLDSC Alternative?" Alan
MacDougall, Loughborough University
"LA-NET and Serials Applications," Sandy Norman, Library Association
"Group 4 FAX," John Wales, ICI Chemicals & Polymers, and Andrew
Braid, British Library Document Supply Centre
Wednesday, April 4:
Interactive Information:
"CD-ROM Panel," Derek Law, King's College London; Steve Hall,
Chadwyck-Healey; Cally Brown, Pergamon Compact Solution
"New World in the Morning: Artificial Intelligence, The Dawn of a
Solution for Serials," John Riddick, Central Michigan University
Workshops and Leaders:
Third World Serials, Hedley Sutton, British Library India Office
Library
Price Indices, John Urquhart, Newcastle-upon-Tyne University
Choosing Secondary Sources: The Online, Hardcopy, CD-ROM Dilemma,
Anne Collins, Leeds University
Do It Yourself: The Problems of the Small Library, Lyndsay Rees-
Jones, GEC Electrical Projects Ltd
Library/Trade Relationships, Albert Prior, Swets UK Ltd.
Training for Serials, Hazel Woodward, Loughborough University
Afternoon Visits:
University of Southampton Library
Historical Southampton Walking Tour
Exbury Gardens (200 acres of woodlands and spring flowers)
Beaulieu National Motor Museum and Palace House & Gardens
British American Tobacco Company Ltd. Library
Portsmouth Polytechnic Library
HMS Victory and Mary Rose Exhibition, Portsmouth
Conference dinner and evening cruise on the Solent (with disco)
Thursday, April 5:
Preparing for Europe:
"Prices for Europe," Sally Morris, Churchill Livingstone (publishers'
view) and Jean-Claude Baroux, Dawson Europe (subscription agents'
view)
"Standards for Europe," by Verina Horsnell, Digital Equipment Ltd.
Information for Europe," by Eric Gaskell, Commission of the European
Communities
Closing Address: "Is There a Future for Librarians Now" Dick
Fletcher, New Media
Registration forms are available from Marcia Tuttle, as is information
about a week's holiday visit (Tuttle's Tour) to Cornwall following the
conference.
16.4 FIRST EUROPEAN SERIALS CONFERENCE, 10 - 12
September, 1990
Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands (from the UKSG Conference
Announcement)
As a joint initiative with Gauthier-Villars and Swets Subscription Service, the UKSG will be holding the first European Serials Conference at the Leeuwenhorst Congress Center, Noordwijkerhout, near Amsterdam. The Conference will address a wide range of issues relevant to librarians, information providers, publishers and agents operating within the European context. Anyone interested is invited to register with the UKSG Administrator in order to receive a programme and booking form:
Mrs. Jill Tolson
UK Serials Group Administrator
114 Woodstock Road
Witnet Oxon OX8 6DT UK
Tel: 0993 703466
FAX: 0993 778879
16.5 REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON LIBRARY SERIALS
CANCELLATIONSThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been reviewing its periodical subscriptions systematically for the past eight years. Librarians and faculty in charge of book fund allocations were given incentive to cancel little-used serials by reallocating part of their cancelled subscription renewal funds to their new subscription funds. Over a period of six years, several hundred subscriptions were cancelled because of this program. By 1986, the only way most departments could initiate new subscriptions was to retrieve money through cancellations.
Nevertheless, in 1988/89, after three straight years with no increase in the materials budget, book purchases were down nearly 40 percent because serials costs were eating up the funds. Therefore, a major cancellation of serials was mandated. All librarians and faculty in charge of book fund allocations were required to prepare two lists of periodicals in their libraries or subject areas that could be cancelled if budget inadequacies continued. The first list was to amount to five percent of the subscription total for that area; the second, an additional five percent. Because of this project 380 titles costing $60,000 were cancelled in 1989, and another $75,000 worth of subscriptions were identified that could be cut if necessary. Another budget crunch in January 1990, has now triggered the decision to make these additional cancellations.
Have other libraries, large or small, conducted major subscription cancellation projects in the last year or so? What methods worked for your library? How many titles have been cancelled and how many dollars saved?
Cancellation projects are extremely time consuming, so libraries tend to do them only when desperate. It is not clear, despite all the discussion of high serials prices, whether many libraries are making significant cancellations or not. If they are, this may be having a major impact on publishers and dealers.
I would be very grateful for any answers from librarians around the country, for a second edition of a book on serials in libraries. I would also be happy to compile the results and share them with subscribers to the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES.
16.6 AHE VENDOR DIRECTORY FOR ACQUISITIONS
LIBRARIANS
Association for Higher Education of North Texas
The Association for Higher Education of North Texas is pleased to announce the publication of the first edition of the AHE VENDOR DIRECTORY FOR ACQUISITIONS LIBRARIANS.
This directory has been created by a group of practicing acquisitions and collection development librarians from six major North Texas universities. It is a working tool for librarians actively engaged in seeking vendor sources for library materials.
In compiling the AHE VENDOR DIRECTORY, the librarians realized that the wealth of information concerning the specialties and services of a broad cross section of domestic and foreign vendors would be of value to librarians everywhere. Therefore, AHE is offering the directory nationwide.
The directory includes information on 134 vendors worldwide who are currently in use in the North Texas area or who were recommended for inclusion. Each entry in the directory gives address, phone, office hours, chief executive officer, and local representative, as well as information concerning the specialties and services of each vendor. These entries are preceded by a detailed index.
The directory is available from AHE, 17811 Waterview Parkway, Suite 125, Dallas TX 75252-8016, for $15.00, plus $2.00 postage and handling ($5.00 outside U.S.A.). Prepayment is preferred; $2.00 will be added if invoicing is required. Please add 8 percent sales tax if applicable. Tax exempt organizations must supply certificate of exemption.
The Vendor Study Group is part of the Acquisitions Subcommittee of the Library Committee of the Association for Higher Education of North Texas (AHE). AHE is a regional, not-for-profit, educational corporation, providing diverse support services to nineteen public and private colleges and universities in partnership with sixteen private-sector corporations and two public libraries.
The group was chaired by Zary M. Shafa from the University of Dallas. Other group members were Julie S. Alexander, The Univeristy of Texas at Arlington; Kristine L. Murphy, Southern Methodist University; Thomas E. Nisonger, The University of Texas at Dallas; Glenda A. Thornton, University of North Texas; Audrey V. Vanderhoof, Texas Christian University; Katherine P. Jagoe and F. Anita Whelan, Association for Higher Education of North Texas.
For further information contact Katherine Pearson Jagoe, Director of Library Programs and Services for the Association for Higher Education of North Texas at (214) 231-7211.
16.7 ALCTS TASK FORCE ON THE ECONOMICS OF ACCESS TO
LIBRARY MATERIALS (EALS)
Marcia Tuttle
Two meetings were scheduled for ALA Midwinter. At the first session, after brief reports from the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES and constituent organizations, discussion turned to the draft report of the task force. George Soete, representing ARL, had drafted the report and revised it after responses from many task force members. The group was very pleased with the result. It was decided that the preliminary report would be distributed at the end of January to the group nominating task force members (the national libraries and related library associations) and to this newsletter. Comments would be solicited with a deadline of May 1, and the final report would be presented at the EALS 1990 Annual Conference Program. As of this date no copy of the report has come. It will be printed in the newsletter when it arrives.
The task force's program has a working title of "Information Resources: A Strategic Investment for the Future." It is scheduled for June 26, 1990, 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. As developed by Robert Wedgeworth and Tess Carey the proposed program has as its basic objectives to:
1. Present a summary report as charged that addresses all
of the issues relevant to the economics of access to library
materials.
2. Elevate the level of the discussion to the national
policy level.
3. Introduce major speakers from government, industry and
the university community to address their interests in a
national policy context.
The newsletter will carry more information about this program as it
becomes available.
16.8 READ IT AND WEEP
Bob Schatz, Sales Manager, Scholarly Book Center, Inc., 451
Greenwich Street, New York NY 10013-1711, (212) 226-0707 (submitted
by Richard Jasper, Emory University).
(This memo accompanied a reprint of a WALL STREET JOURNAL article. It is entitled: "End of a Boom: Book Publishers Face A Painful Austerity After Lavish Spending; Heads Roll, and Big Advances To Top Authors Are Cut; Is the Worst Yet to Come?" ED.)
The Wall Street Journal has been kind enough to sell us reprints of an article appearing on the front page of the November 21st edition. If you haven't read it, we suggest you do so now.
While on the surface of it, this article appears to be about trade books (not the main stock-in-trade of either university libraries or book wholesalers to those libraries), it does not take much effort to read a more significant message between the lines: one should not be surprised by either rising prices or reduced discounts to wholesalers from the large, multi-level publishers.
The enormous prices paid by publishing giants to expand their empires is bound to come at a cost to the rest of us. While losses on disappointing `bestsellers' have been experienced in the trade divisions of these publishing empires, who for a second believes that other divisions will not be called upon to make good on these debts? Now that trade publishing and scholarly publishing are increasingly tied together through publishing conglomerates, there is no reason to believe this will not happen.
For those of us who depend on the good business practices of publishers for our well-being, and that of our customers, outrageous author advances and inflated corporate buyouts become a matter of great concern. We wholesalers need only look at discount reductions in recent years from Gale, Elsevier and Academic Press to remind ourselves of the effect of publishers' profits on booksellers' health. Our fear, frankly, is that more is on the way.
In an effort to keep you up-to-date on important events in publishing, as well as to solicit your support in efforts we may have to make to defend our (and your) discounts in the future, we wanted you to have a chance to read this article. Perhaps, instead of "Read It And Weep" we should have headed this page "Forewarned is Forearmed.' The question remains, though, as to whether we have sufficient armaments to withstand what may be coming. It's something to think about.
16.9 DANNY JONES TAKES ON THE _EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF
BIOCHEMISTRY_
Danny Jones, University of Texas Health Science Center Library,
San Antonio TX, BITNET: JONES@UTHSCSA
I understand a number of libraries were as dismayed as I when they received the EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF BIOCHEMISTRY's "free" extra volume. I hear some have just thrown it away. I'd like to urge them to send it back with a strongly worded letter to the editor. Here's what my letter said:
February 8, 1990
Prof. Dr. P. Christen
Biochemisches Institut der Universitat Zurich
Winterthurerstrasse 190
CH-8057 Zurich
Switzerland
Dear Professor Dr. Christen:
I am writing to express my concern upon receiving the EJB REVIEWS
1989. Such duplication of recently published material in my opinion is
extravagant and wasteful and is not to be condoned or encouraged. We
have decided not to accept the volume and are returning it to our
subscription agent, Otto Harrassowitz in Wiesbaden, with instructions
to return it to the publisher. While we would certainly prefer to
receive credit against our 1989 payment for the journal, we will not
accept EJB REVIEWS 1989, regardless. I shall communicate with my colleagues
in other libraries and encourage them to do the same.
If the EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF BIOCHEMISTRY, which cost $1643 in 1989, can
afford the cost of printing, binding, and mailing an additional volume
of articles it has just published in 1989, then I would suggest the
price of the journal is too high and should be reduced instead of
supporting redundant publication. Rather than improving communication
and information dissemination among scientists, I believe that republication
of these review articles might actually cause them confusion and possibly
waste their time. Furthermore, I would urge you to cancel plans to publish
a volume of EJB REVIEWS in 1990 and issue a credit or refund to all
subscribers for the amount that would be saved by not publishing it. And
perhaps for 1991 you could even reduce the price of the journal!
Respectfully yours,
Daniel H. Jones, M.L.S.
Assistant Library Director for
Collection Development
xc: Springer-Verlag, Berlin
E. Hoffmann, Reviews Editor
K. Dorn, Otto Harrassowitz Agency
16.10 MEMO TO GERMAN LIBRARIES:
TRANSLATIONTO: All University Libraries, State Libraries, Special Libraries in the Federal Republic
The Acquisition Commission has provided information in BIBLIOTHEKSDIENST 1990 about the suit currently pending in the Frankfurt State Court by the U.S. publisher Gordon & Breach. This information was provided at the request of American colleagues who assumed -- justifiably -- that an unfavorable result of the suit against Professor Barschall and APS would greatly impede price comparisons worldwide. U.S. colleagues requested by a FAX message of 30-1-90 that the Acquisition Commission inform you of the following circumstances:
A "Foundation for International Cooperation" with a director "Maurice Levy" distributes at present to all scientific libraries in the USA a 5-page questionnaire in which besides many questions about budget and collection there is also -- quite harmlessly -- the question if one has read the article by Barschall in PHYSICS TODAY and on the basis of reading it has cancelled or added journals, which are then to be listed.
ARL has in the meantime found out that the "Foundation" is so far unknown in the USA, that the postage meter used in the mailing is registered to G & B, and that the address to which the questionnaire is to be returned is that of an employee of a Washington law firm. ARL fears that answering the questionnaire might provide material to G & B to document with concrete examples business damages on the basis of the article by Barschall. The German libraries are therefore requested to leave the questionnaire unanswered -- if it is sent.
The members of the Acquisition Commission herewith forward this request and enclose copy of the letterhead of the ominous questionnaire for your information. We call your attention to the fact that currently a representative of G & B is visiting German libraries and likewise asks questions in connection with the cancellation of G & B journals. Here also, reticence is recommended.
(signed) DR. H.J. Dorpinghaus
16.11 CALL FOR PAPERS
Jennifer Cargill, Rice University Library, BITNET:
CARGILL@LIBRARY.RICE.EDU.
Readers of the pricing newsletter may be interested in this opportunity to contribute to a forthcoming publication on resource sharing. We are issuing a CALL FOR PAPERS for volume 2 of ADVANCES IN LIBRARY RESOURCE SHARING. Volume 1 will be published in 1990 by Meckler. We are interested in proposed papers on all aspects of resource sharing: cooperative ventures, technological advances/implications, cost studies, future role of resource sharing, as well as other topics. Interested participants should submit a proposal for a paper by July 15, 1990, to Jennifer Cargill, 7499 Brompton Blvd., Houston TX 77025-2266. Notification of acceptance of the proposal will be sent to the author(s) during August 1990. Deadline for submission of the final paper is January 1991.
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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.
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The NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES (ISSN: 1046-3410) is published
as news is available by the American Library Association's Association for
Library Collections and Technical Services, Publisher/Vendor-Library Relations
Committee's Subcommittee on Serials Pricing Issues. Editor: Marcia Tuttle,
BITNET: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET; Faxon's DataLinx: TUTTLE; ALANET: ALA0348;
Paper mail: Serials Department, C.B. #3938 Davis Library, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3938; telephone: (919)
962-1067; FAX: (919) 962-0484. Committee members are: Deana Astle
(Clemson University), Mary Elizabeth Clack (Harvard University), Jerry
Curtis (Consultant), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), Robert
Houbeck (University of Michigan), and Marcia Tuttle. EBSCONET customers may
receive the newsletter in paper format from EBSCO. Back issues of the
newsletter are available electronically free of charge through BITNET from
the editor.
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