Immediately below is an adaptation of a message listowner Birdie MacLennan sent to SERIALST, a discussion group concerned with matters related to library serials. It explains that she and I will co-edit SERIALST and that its scope will expand to include serials pricing. When the newsletter began in February 1989, neither SERIALST nor ACQNET existed. After their appearance and their ability to relay messages almost immediately, I became aware of the time lag between my receiving a message and its appearance in the newsletter. For some time I have been concerned about the delay, and I considered creating an associated discussion group just for serials pricing. The newsletter's editorial board did not want another source of news and felt that our readers would agree. When Birdie decided that SERIALST should be edited and that she would like to share the work with me, I saw this collaboration as a way to improve both resources. SERIALST will lose messages that were not meant to go to the entire subscription list, and interested persons will have the benefit of pricing news getting out more quickly. Both Birdie and I hope our readers will benefit from this association, and we will be happy to hear your reaction, positive or negative.
NS13.2 SERIALST: ANNIVERSARY AMD CHANGE
Birdie MacLennan, University of Vermont, and
listowner, SERIALST, BMACLENN@UVMVM.BITNET.
[Adapted from a message posted on SERIALST.]
Friday, October 18, marked the first anniversary of SERIALST. For a year, SERIALST has been an unmoderated/unedited discussion group operating with technical support from Computer Operations at the University of Vermont. When the forum began, I did not entertain thoughts about trying to moderate it, but wanted to ensure a means for a fast, spontaneous outlet for questions and concerns related to most aspects of serials processing in libraries (excluding messages on serials pricing issues, which were already covered by the Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues). This has worked, and the list has sustained itself, while continuing to grow (there are currently 700+ subscribers) without editorial intervention.
However, in a few instances list maintenance mail has slipped through and caused minor problems or led to unnecessary postings. Recently, some of you have sent me newsworthy items and asked about posting them to the list.
These events have caused me to reconsider an editorial approach as a means of enhancing and expanding the scope of SERIALST. Since last summer, Marcia Tuttle, editor of the Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues, and I have been exchanging messages about co-editing SERIALST.
We propose that we expand the scope of SERIALST to include issues and concerns on serials pricing, while upgrading the technical parameters of the list to accommodate a forum to be co-edited by Marcia Tuttle and myself. While SERIALST will cover a full range of serials topics and benefit from editorial intervention, selected messages from SERIALST will be included in the "From the Mailbox" section of the Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues. Our proposal was recently approved by the Editorial Board of the Newsletter.
The changes will go into effect in November (watch for future announcements on SERIALST and in the newsletter) and should not significantly change outer appearances. The only difference will be that mail will be screened by an editor before it is distributed to the list. All other technical complaints (error messages and listserv maintenance) will still be handled by me, in collaboration with technical support from the University of Vermont's computer center personnel.
NS13.3 FURTHER ON THE ELSEVIER 1992 PRICE LIST
John Tagler, Elsevier Science Publishers, 655 Avenue
of the Americas, New York NY 10010; 212 989-5800.
Thank you for communicating my comments on your analysis of the 1992 Elsevier Science Publishers' price list. You and Jim Mouw raised several questions in response to my comments and I want to wrap up any loose ends on the matter.
Here goes, addressing the questions as they appear in the Newsletter (NS 10):
1. You ask why I draw a distinction between "new" titles launched in 1991 and 1992. I know that librarians like to analyze and make lists, particularly lists of new journal launches. Since some of the 1991 launches appeared in other Elsevier catalogs prior to the 1992 price list, I was simply adding a word of caution and asking that new titles not be counted twice -- once for 1991 and again for 1992.
2. The perception seems to be that when Elsevier or another international publisher acquires a journal, a significant price increase follows. This is very difficult to address categorically since each journal has a different profile. Each journal would need to be addressed on an independent basis and to do so would probably violate some editorial and professional confidences. However, let me offer two considerations on this point.
First, very often a commercial publisher will acquire a quality journal that has not been soundly managed and has been losing money, and the journal's only hope for survival is better financial management, which often involves increasing the subscription price. The subscriber may perceive the action as a price increase whereas the publisher is balancing the ledger.
Second, the large international publishers, who are such popular targets, tend to do their job quite well. When one of these publishers acquires an existing journal, there is often improvement in the editorial operation, production and distribution of the journal, and with this often comes additional costs. From Elsevier's perspective, if a journal is worth publishing, it is worth doing it well.
3. Prices for translation journals are generally higher than those for traditional primary journals. While librarians may deem these prices "frightening," the costs for running translation journals is exceedingly high and start-up costs are equally "frightening" to the publisher.
For the two newly-launched Elsevier Russian translation journals, every effort has been made to price as moderately as possible and in comparing our prices with the competition, we seem to have achieved that goal.
4. Newsletter publications are a very distinct breed from primary journals, and publishers approach them differently. While libraries may choose to buy newsletters, our publishing responsibility is to the professionals in industry for whom these publications are intended. Most subscribers to Elsevier newsletters are non-libraries.
Newsletters have a highly topical focus and are not intended to last indefinitely but only as long as a particular subject niche warrants. Newsletters, by design, are a far less permanent record than the primary journal.
5. Jim Mouw asked for examples of Elsevier journals that declined in price in instances when publication output is reduced. Elsevier has a long-standing policy of reflecting reduced publication output in subscription prices. Here are some examples for 1991 and 1992 where the format and volume/issue ratio maintains parity from year to year:
Developmental Brain Research
1991: Dfl. 2191.00 (7 vols/14 iss)
1992: Dfl. 1986.00 (6 vols/12 iss)
Coordination Chemistry Reviews
1991: Dfl. 2320.00 (8 vols/16 iss)
1992: Dfl. 2212.00 (7 vols/14 iss)
International Journal of Production Economics
1991: Dfl. 1100.00 (4 vols/12 iss)
1992: Dfl. 873.00 (3 vols/9 iss)
Journal of Electrostatics
1991: Dfl. 630.00 (2 vols/6 iss)
1992: Dfl. 331.00 (1 vol/3 iss)
Review of Palaeobotany and Palynolody
1991: Dfl. 1690.00 (5 vols/20 iss)
1992: Dfl. 1444.00 (4 vols/16 iss)
I have kept the prices in local currency to avoid confusion over exchange rate fluctuations.
I hope this answers the lingering questions from Newsletter NS 10.
[It does, indeed. Thank you, John! We appreciate your responding to questions raised by the newsletter readers -- and editor -- that pertain to your company. However, editorial board member Deana Astle has some comments:
I looked at the explanation reported by John on the Elsevier titles, and while he is right that the overall subscription price came down when the frequency dropped, the cost per volume went up in all cases listed. Developmental Brain Research went from Dfl 313 to Dfl 331 (5.8 percent); Coordination Chemistry Reviews from Dfl 290 to Dfl 316 (9 percent); International Journal of Product Economics from Dfl 275 to 291 (5.8 percent; Journal of Electrostatics from Dfl 315 to Dfl 331 (5.1 percent); Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology from Dfl 338 to Dfl 361 per volume (6.8 percent). This in no way invalidates his comments, but shows that nothing ever really decreases in price except ina relative way.]
NS13.4 INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF SCIENCE EDITORS:
CONFERENCE REPORT
Ann Schaffner, Brandeis University, SCHAFFNER@BRANDLOG.BITNET.
International Federation of Science Editors
6th International Conference
Science Editing and Global Communications
Woods Hole, Ma. Oct. 14-18
I have no idea whether this group's conferences are all this worthwhile, but this one was extraordinary in a number of ways. A total audience of about 80 participants (with perhaps 3 or 4 librarians), including 7 Nobel Laureates, and other interesting folks such as Marvin Minsky, Eugene Garfield and John Maddox, the editor of NATURE. Apparently the Woods Hole location contributed to attracting such a collection of individuals! The questions and discussions at the sessions and at breakfast, lunch, and dinner were among the most interesting. I hope that IFSE will be able to publish the proceedings -- they would be a worthwhile purchase. In the interim, I'll provide a brief overview and summarize just a few of the more interesting sessions.
The major themes and conclusions of interest to me were the following:
1. The concern of all for the future of science publishing and the role of libraries -- impressive coming from people of this renown.
2. Major shifts to electronic publishing are seen by this group to be roughly 10 years down the road. These electronic journals need not be clones of paper journals, but should make use of the special advantages of the new medium.
3. The technology in most cases is there; what needs to be changed are the habits of readers and publishers. As John Maddox said in speaking of this change "I'm cheerful about the technology, but less so about the readers."
4. Third World countries are in a position to "leap frog" current technologies (such as paper) and move directly to relying on electronic formats for much of scholarly communication. The use of satellite transmission will make this possible in many areas without the investment in the electronic infrastructure of cableing etc. that industrialized countries have already made.
5. Science communications and information retrieval systems lack important "filters" for quality. People don't want 100 articles on a topic; they want the 10 important articles of high quality that relate specifically to their research. Marvin Minsky took it a step further when he said "We don't want to retrieve documents; we want to be able to ask the machine 'how does this protein work?'"
6. While participants recognized pricing as one factor leading to the need for a new system of communication, most were relatively unrealistic about the effect of recent price increases on the system.
Danny Hillis, Founder of Thinking Machines Corp. and a protege of Marvin Minsky spoke on technological changes in hardware and their effect on scientific communication. He noted that the changes seen at the end of the 15th century with the invention of printing had made even more dramatic changes. The reason that the changes were so dramatic was that the economics of producing and distributing information shifted. We are currently witnessing the same kinds of changes with the continuing drop in the costs of computation and storage. He noted that real physical limitations are beginning to slow down the shrinking of the size of components and that future advances will be moving from sequential processing to parallel processing techniques. He noted that information processing to date had focused on the replication and distribution of information, but offered little help with evaluating the content. He described an information retrieval technique developed by his company where the reader rates or scores an initial set of documents retrieved. Based on this information, the system refines the search in subsequent passes. Hillis also made the point that computational advances would change the very nature of science. Instead of being divided in experimental vs. theoretical scientists, we will see the advent of a whole new group of "computational" scientists who reach their conclusions through computer modelling techniques.
Edward Huth, the editor of the new, highly-touted AAAS/OCLC electronic journal Clinical Trials, was a featured after-dinner speaker. Most of the discussion was devoted to a heated debate on whether the journal should be limited to controlled clinical trials. However, what he said about the potential of electronic publishing was also worthwhile. He estimated that up to 75 percent of a traditional journal's cost could be allocated to actual production and distribution costs [This is a figure that's always hard to get any publisher to admit, but participants at this conference ususally placed their estimates at between 50-75 percent.] Huth went on to say that authors published for a variety of reasons: to gain visibility within the profession [this was not received well by conference participants!]; to archive their findings; and to validate their findings. Readers, on the other hand, read [in medicine] for general background, or to apply to their practice or research. The biggest cost for readers [again in medicine] is the time lost, not the subscription price. An electronic journal need not be subject to the same limitations of space as a paper journal; it can afford to increase the content.
It can provide its own indexing and offer the ability to jump to different areas, or to related articles listed in a bibliography. It can reduce the time lag from submission of article to publication. It can also be "cumulative", attaching commentary, letters and criticism to the original document.
Joshua Lederberg, now of Rockefeller University and a Nobel Laureate spoke about scientific literature and communication from the perspective of a single scientific reader. He rarely reads books -- just uses them for brief, targeted reference information. The exceptions are broad sweeping books by well-known scientists that synthesize information or biographies of important scientists. He also uses annual review type publications to keep in touch with neighboring fields. He subscribes to about 12 journals, which are scanned and often taken home for "bedside reading" -- paper format is essential for this function! For keeping up with the "vast extant literature" in the area of his specialty, he uses Current Contents on diskette. This generates about 20 articles a week, which he feels is feasible, though he admits that he has more time for reading than many scientists. These 20 articles may come from a wide variety of sources, and he is quite happy to have his library order these via ILL or document delivery -- he sees no need to have them in the local collection. The biggest problem is that this generates 1000 articles a year or ca. 10,000 articles after 10 years, and he must devise a way of keeping track of all this! Lederberg, like Maddox, sees "social" rather than technical obstacles to full text electronic publishing. He feels that the scientific literature as a whole is becoming unmanageable. Scientists are becoming increasing specialized -- they reduce the scope of their investigations to a size where they can keep up with the literature. Is there too much information? Yes, when we think of the problem in broad terms, but no, when we need some specific piece of information or are looking for work in a related field. One of the effects of the flood of information is what he calls the "scandal" of not taking the scientific literature seriously anymore. The primary sources of information in many fields are the informal ones -- there is no concern for validated, reviewed inforamtion that has gone through the formal process. What are the options for the future? One alternative is the "wholehearted exploitations of new technologies," a "marriage of the editorial role and new technologies," where we must recognize the value added by the formal publication process. Technical expertise would come from for profit publishers and societies, the journals would provide for feedback, dialectic by publishing reactions from the scientific community, and gobal access could be provided easily.
Other speakers included Nina Matheson, James Watson, Leon Lederman, William Arms, Eugene Garfield, and David Baltimore! One footnote of interest to this group. I asked David Baltimore, as president of a major university, if he thought that universities should take on more of a role in science publishing. He hedged a bit, but indicated some serious problems that he saw -- it's not really the role of the university, for-profit publishers provide capital and expertise, especially in the areas of marketing, and there is a need for diversity in the publishing enterprise.
Future conferences are scheduled for Bahrain and Italy. Contact IFSE for more information:
Mrs. Gerda Helbig
IFSE Secretary-Treasurer
ISSZ
Kiebitzrain 84
3000 Hannover 51, Germany
NS13.5 SISAC NEWS: ANSI/NISO Z39.56 1991 HAS PASSED!
AND SISAC UPDATEOn July 15, 1991, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) announced that the Serial Item and Contribution Identifier (SICI) was passed by the Board of Standards Review. Designated as ANSI/NISO Z39.56 (1991), the SICI is a string of numbers and/or letters which uniquely identify a particular item (issue) and/or contribution (article) of a serial.
Developed by a NISO (National Information Standards Organization) committee under the auspices of SISAC (Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee), this standard has been ten years in development. It took time to reach consensus, to promote the concept throughout the industry, and to develop and test the barcode implementation of the SICI known as the SISAC Symbol.
The SICI is composed of the ISSN, chronology (date of item/issue), and the enumeration (volume, issue, part, etc. numbering) for that particular issue. At the end, there is a check digit using the modulus 37 formula.
ex: 1046-3410(19910903)7;1-M
Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues, n.s. no.7
September 3, 1991
1046-3410 - ISSN
(19910903) - September 3, 1991 issue (chronology)
7 - n.s. number 7 (enumeration)
1 - version 1 (current standard); 0 (draft)
M - check digit
At the contribution/article level, the SICI includes the number of the
first page or item or some other location indicator. If there is more
than one article per page, an alphabetic string representing the first
over-three-letter words will be provided.
As I write, the final edited version of the standard is in the hands of NISO. By the end of the year, we plan to have ANSI/NISO Z39.56 (1991), the Serials Item and Contribution Identifier available from Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ 08903. Phone: 908-932-2280. Fax: 908-932-3138. The Faxon Company will be the maintenance agency for the standard.
The barcoded version of the item/issue identifier of the SICI is called the SISAC Symbol. Appearing on the cover of a journal issue, the Symbol can be used for ease of checkin, for interlibrary loan, inventory purposes, document delivery and many other possibilities.
The barcode symbology selected to create the Symbol is Code 128. Publishers wanting to know more about the SISAC Symbol and how to create it should contact the SISAC office at 160 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Phone: 212-929-1393. Fax: 212-989-7542. A publication entitled "Serial Issue Identification: Code and Symbol Guidelines" is currently being updated and will be available for $7.50.
The following publishers/publications are already using the SISAC Symbol:
Against the Grain
EBSCO publications
Faxon publications
Kidney International (Springer-Verlag)
Kluwer Academic Publishers (Since 1989)
SCAN Newsletter
Scholarly Publishing
SISAC NEWS
Beginning with 1992, the publishers below have committed to printing the SISAC Symbol on their journals:
Academic Press UK (division of Harcourt)
Blackwell Publishing
Blackwell Scientific
Elsevier Science Pubishers
Pergamon
Royal Society of Chemistry
Taylor and Francis
John Wiley and Sons
Please encourage other publishers to participate in this program and thank those that already do.
Library automation systems that have committed to being able to scan the SISAC Symbol now or in a future release are:
Data Trek, Inc.
Microlinx (Faxon)
INNOPAC/INNOVACQ
NOTIS
SIRSI
Swets
VTLS
My thanks go out to those that worked hard to see the SICI become reality. The passage of the standard is a great achievement and the future uses of the SICI are already becoming evident -- especially its use within EDI (electronic data interchange) for claiming, ordering, etc.
SISAC Update - October 24, 1991
In 1990, SISAC (Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee) made a momentous decision. After much discussion the Committee moved to use the ANSI ASC (Accredited Standards Committee) X12 standard to develop electronic interchange of business transactions within the serials industry. We followed the lead of BISAC (Book Industry Systems Advisory Commitee) in accepting X12 along with the transportation, banking, automobile, and other industries.
Five committees were formed to deal with each major serials business transaction: order, order acknowledgement, claim, invoice, and order changes (including cancellation). Throughout the Winter and Spring of 1991 we struggled to educate ourselves as far as the basics of X12: transaction sets, data elements, etc.
At meetings held in San Antonio, Texas between the NASIG and the SLA conferences, SISAC members discussed how we could move faster in working with the ASC X12 standard. In order to make progress we needed to allot a block of time and just work on the mapping (slotting serials data parts into the X12 format). We, therefore, planned a retreat to be held at the National Library of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Twenty-three people including librarians, systems vendors, librarians, subscriptions agents, and publishers met for two full days. It was an exhilarating experience for all of us. At this meeting, we dealt with an initial draft of the claims transaction set and discussed ordering basics.
For one day, the invoice group met in Boston and were able to walk away with a basic format which was later worked into a more extensive document. In addition, we met for a day and a half in New York and worked on Invoice and Claim.
At this time, we now have a final draft of the claims and invoice mapping. Both items have been given to ICEDIS (International Committee for the EDI for Serials - a publisher/vendor group) for comment. With comments expected back from ICEDIS in December, the SISAC office will then send the claims draft to all members of SISAC.
Our next major mapping session will be in Washington, DC at the Library of Congress on October 31st and November 1st. We plan to cover some issues relating to claims and invoicing and then will jump into the essentials of serials ordering.
In addition, SISAC has created an Implementation Task Force. We want to test the mapping that we have developed. We will be looking for subscription agents, publishers, automation vendors, and libraries to help us. Before we issue a final version of our X12 mapping, SISAC wants to make sure that the mapping is accurate and meets our needs.
Systems vendors, publishers, librarians, subscription agents, consultants, and others are involved in this dynamic process. We invite you to be a participant in the development of these standards. Even if you are unable to attend meetings, much of the work is done through mail, phone, fax or electronic mail. It is so important that everyone within the serials world has a say in how we implement the ASC X12 standard. (A personal membership rate of $40 is available for librarians.)
SISAC meets at ALA and ALA-Midwinter Conferences plus at least four other times a year -- most often in New York or Washington DC. Our ALA-Midwinter meeting is currently planned to take place Sunday evening, January 25, 1992 at 8:00 to 10:00 PM.
Membership information is available from the SISAC Office, 160 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Phone: 212-929-1393. FAX: 212-989-7542.
NS13.6 FROM THE MAILBOX
> The mailbox is: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET.
>From Bill Benson, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, DataLinx: FL2802: We just received our Wiley Catalog for 1992. We order 11 titles from them and the price increases average 19 percent, with the four highest being:
Journal of Computational Chemistry (ISSN: 0192-8651)), up 21 percent, to $495 from $410 (no increase in issues)
Journal of Polymer Science (several issn), up 22 percent, to $1950 from $1595 (no information as to size increase)
Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics(ISSN: 0010-3640), up 26 percent, to $550 from $435 (up to 10 issues from 9 in 1991)
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering (ISSN: 0029-5981), up 42 percent, to $1495 from $1050 (UK publication; increased from 8 issues in 1991 to 23 issues in 1992).
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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
by the editor as news is available. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, BITNET:
TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET; Faxon's DataLinx: TUTTLE; 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.
Editorial Board: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Jerry Curtis (Springer
Verlag New York), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), James Mouw
(University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals
Division). The Newsletter is available on BITNET and ALANET. EBSCO and
Readmore Academic customers may receive the Newsletter in paper format from
EBSCO and Readmore, respectively. Back issues of the Newsletter are available
electronically free of charge through BITNET from the editor.
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