42.1 FROM THE EDITOR , Marcia Tuttle
42.2 LIST OF PUBLISHERS WHO HAVE RELEASED 1992 PRICES TO SUBSCRIPTION AGENTS , Sandy Gurshman
42.3 ANNOUNCING A NEW LIST ON COPYRIGHT , Mary Brandt Jensen
42.4 ELSEVIER TRENDS PRICE DIFFERENTIAL EXPLAINED , David Bousfield
I get copies of all the subscribe and unsubscribe messages for "prices-l," which is the name of this newsletter on the listserver. I'm seeing a lot of "Invalid Request" responses from the computer. There are two ways to minimize this situation. One is to be sure to add your name to the subscribe or unsubscribe message, and the other is to be sure you are sending the message from the address used with which you subscribed. The "review prices-l" command (which doesn't need your name) will show you how you are listed if you have more than one e-mail address. In addition, there have been a couple of requests to "set nomail your name." At the moment the listserver won't do this, but I've asked about it. Also about archiving the back issues SOON. Finally, I don't believe I have ever said this: to subscribe (or unsubscribe), send a message to LSITSERV@GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU, saying: SUBSCRIBE (or UNSUBSCRIBE) PRICES-L [YOUR NAME]
42.2 LIST OF PUBLISHERS WHO HAVE RELEASED 1993 PRICES TO SUBSCRIPTION AGENTS Sandy Gurshman, Readmore Academic Subscriptions, Gurshman@Readmore.Com
Timing of publishers' releases of price lists to agents is of concern to librarians struggling with budget schedules. After discussions at ALA in San Francisco, Readmore agreed to keep the library community informed about receipt of 1993 prices from our top publishers. By July 31, Readmore had received price lists from:
Academic Press (US) - 7/22
American Academy of Pediatrics - 7/23
AAAS - 7/21
American Chemical Society - 6/25
American Institute of Physics - 7/28
American Physiological Society - 6/26
American Psychological Society - 7/23
American Psychiatric Press - 7/23
Audio Digest - 6/30
Biochemical Society/Portland Press - 7/27
Biosis - 6/30
Butterworth/Heinemann - 7/23
Frank Cass - 7/27
Marcel Dekker - 7/23
Lawrence Erlbaum - 7/14
Facts & Comparisons - 6/10
Haworth - 5/22
Human Sciences Press (Plenum) - 7/14
IEEE - 7/14
ISI - 7/14
Karger - 7/16
Kogan Page - 7/27
Mary Ann Leibert - 6/12
Medical Letters - 6/26
Mosby Yearbook - 7/30
New England Journal of Medicine - 7/10
Oxford Univ Press - 7/28
Paul Parey - 7/29
PDR - 7/22
Plenum - 7/13
Prous - 7/21
Raven - 7/31
Royal Society of Chemistry - 7/2
Scandinavian University Press - 7/28
University of California Press - 6/25
University of Chicago Press - 6/27
University of Texas Press - 7/20
University of Toronto Press - 7/7
University of Wisconsin Press - 6/17
Elsevier (7/23), Kluwer (7/9), and Pergamon (7/28) prices have arrived but are on hold. These publishers have requested that prices not be released until they have established their 1993 exchange rates.
We'll continue to update this list as we receive prices.
42.3 ANNOUNCING A NEW LIST ON COPYRIGHT [From PACS-L.] Mary Brandt Jensen, University of South Dakota School of Law, MJENSEN@charlie.usd.edu.
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42.4 ELSEVIER TRENDS PRICE DIFFERENTIAL EXPLAINED David Bousfield, Elsevier Trends Journals, Cambridge, UK, trends@phx.cam.ac.uk.
I am sympathetic to the concerns expressed by Joanna Wagar in NS 30. We are very aware that many of you have commented on our apparent change in pricing policy over the last couple of years. While I feel that the response she received from Kumar Patel (also published in NS 30) explains the commercial factors underlying this policy quite accurately, I hope that readers will find these additional remarks useful.
For those librarians who do not already know this particular type of Elsevier product, let me explain that the Trends journals are monthly current awareness magazines designed to keep individual researchers up-to-date with all the significant advances in their fields. Currently our titles are almost exclusively in the biomedical areas such as immunology, biochemistry, neuroscience and so on. Each issue contains around 45 pages of news and review articles commissioned by our in-house editorial teams, many of whom were until recently practising scientists themselves.
In order to know who to invite to write, on what topic and at what time, our staff read, travel, 'phone, email and fax extentively, to actively monitor the progress of their field on an almost daily bhasis. In addition, we ensure peer-review and re-write nearly everything we publish. Often we improve the didactic quality of the issultrations, through colour or redrawing, so that the finished product is accessible, browsable, attractive and, above all, reliable. One consequence of this attention to quality is that the Trends magazines are among the most highly-cited journals in the whole of science (See _Science Watch_, April 1991.)
To achieve that quality Elsevier currently has 77 employees working specifically on 10 Trends titles. As Kumar Patel's reply to Wagar states, "The Trends journals are extremely costly to produce," and Tony Stankus (NS32) is therefore correct in surmising that quality and price are connected.
BUT WHY PRICING DIFFERENTIAL?
The institutional price (currently L239) then reflects the true costs -- the price to individuals only the marginal extra costs (printing, paper, distribution, fulfilment) of producing a further twelve monthly issues. Individual subscribers, however, can list a magazine's circulation from hundreds to thousands, at which point advertising can become a significant source of income.
At our present stage of development advertising revenues do form a significant proportion of our income and this allows us to keep both subscription prices lower than they would be otherwise. Thus, the differential between the institutional and the personal price mainly stems from the price required to keep us in business (L239) and the price required to maintain our affordability for individual researchers (L59).
The differential was introduced in 1979 and it was made clear on all promotional literature that the personal rate was only available to individuals. However, not everyone read the small print, including our own sales reps, so in 1990 we began to enforce the policy more stringently -- hence Joanna Wagar's letter. It may be an annoying policy for some, but we feel that it is a fair one.
ABOUT COMPENDIA
I regard Wagar's "superfluous annual hardbound compendium" as a separate issue -- no pun intended! The compendium was introduced as a separate service for institutional subscribers in 1979. Believe it of not, we were trying to be helpful! Back in the '70s the monthly issues included a lot of news and gossip which we felt no-one would want to archive, so we thought that an annual bound version containing just the meaty science articles plus index would be more useful. Since then, however, the news and gossip columns have been replaced by more science sections and today all the material published in the monthly issues appears in the compendia. The essential point is that the compendium was never intended to be a justification for a price differential -- it was produced to bring home to librarians and their customers the fact that Trends material was worth archiving, and to provide an archivable resource free from the soiling and theft which the much-used monthly issues are prone to.
When I was Editor of _Trends in Neurosciences_, I once asked my editorial board whether they found the compendia useful. They responded with a unanimous "yes." Life would be a lot simpler for us if we ceased to produce the compendium volume, but we would not be able to change the institutional price by a great deal. What do you want? I shall look forward to hearing from you either directly or via the "net."
42.5 FROM THE MAILBOX The Mailbox is: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET or Marcia_Tuttle@unc.edu.
>From Dana Roth, Cal Tech, DZRLIB@CITROMEO.BITNET:
The recent demise of _Progress in Reaction Kinetics_ reminded me of its payment history and was a nostalgic nightmare down memory lane. Can it be true that we only paid $18.72, $13.82 & $24.30 for volumes 3,4,5(1965-70)? Beginning with v.6 issues were billed as published @ $3.50 to $4.50 per issue. Beginning with v.9 subscriptions were required, but Pergamon carefully billed for years not volumes. In the end, everything finally worked out but the publication was stretched out to the point where we paid for v.15, 1989 in October of 1985. If Pergamon's representatives wonder why librarians are not exactly overjoyed when they hear the words Maxwell or Pergamon, perhaps this experience will give them a clue.
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 as news is available, through the facilities of the UNC-Chapel Hill Office for Information Technology. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, BITNET: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET; Internet: Marcia_Tuttle@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), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), James Mouw (University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division). The Newsletter is available on BITNET and Blackwell's CONNECT. EBSCO and Readmore Academic customers may receive the Newsletter in paper format from these companies. Back issues of the Newsletter are available electronically free of charge through BITNET from the editor.