57.2 COMMENTS ON FISHER'S "RESPONSE TO TRLN COPYRIGHT DOCUMENT," John Evans
C. Eric Tull, University of Calgary Libraries, tull@acs.ucalgary.ca.
I read with interest the comments of Richard P. Jasper ("Thoughts on the Copyright Statement," _Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues_, No. 55, October 27, 1992). The costs for the publication of sci/tech information have clearly been placed more and more on libraries, and proportionately less and less on publishing scientists. This is a result in part of the increasing switch of sci/tech publishing to the commercial sector, whereby the subsidization through page charges to individual researchers is lost, as is the subsidization of overall publishing costs that many scholarly societies provide. It is also a result of the two-tiered charges, whereby libraries must pay considerably more for a journal than does an individual scientist, even though they both receive the same product.
The benefits from such publishing are twofold. Society benefits from the increased knowledge, and libraries serve a major role in disseminating that knowledge. But individual scientists also benefit greatly. The publishing of an article serves to benefit the career of the publishing scientist. "Publish or perish" is a fait accompli in the scientific world, and the underlying cause of the sci/tech journal problem that every library is faced with.
Scientists also benefit individually from the publications of other scientists, as these help to direct their research efforts and thereby benefit their career paths. In view of the benefits individual researchers obtain from scholarly publishing, the burden of the costs should not be so disproportionately placed on libraries.
Libraries are in fact acting to reduce the costs they bear. In the longer term we are making efforts to network, and to influence copyright policy, scientists' choices of publishing venues, and other aspects of the scientific publishing game. But in the short term, when the chips are down and a library is faced with a budget that cannot keep up with serial costs, the library must act alone in the here and now, and the only choice is to cancel subscriptions.
The University of Calgary Libraries were faced with this choice this year. We had been increasingly relying on soft monies to supplement our base budget, and these were much reduced this year. Operating on an assumption of 15% serial price increases, we have cancelled in the order of $300,000 (Canadian) of serial subscriptions. And we did not cut enough! With the price increases we are presently receiving, we will have to make major cuts again next year. Our collection will more and more move toward the journals used heavily by students, while the more advanced journals used by only a few researchers will be lost.
The only consolation we have been able to offer our unhappy faculty is the access we have begun to provide to a new document indexing and rapid delivery system, CARL UnCover, which we have made available across the campus. We are also investigating another such service. The library covers the cost of making the service available, but the individual researchers pay for the costs of any articles ordered. In so doing we are returning some of the cost burden back to the individual scientists. Although it is too early to say definitively, the system has been meeting with considerable interest.
We are thus taking another major step from an emphasis on collection development to an emphasis on provision of access. But there is a major concern in so doing. Our role to provide information is becoming dependent in part on a few outside providers, who are subject to the same skyrocketing price increases we are. Can these providers maintain or expand their journal coverages, and what will this do to their charges for article delivery? It seems to me that their charges for document delivery should be covering part of their journal costs, as well as the costs of operating their document delivery system (i.e., transferring some of the journal costs to the individual users). If not, they will be in the same boat of needing to cancel subscriptions, and libraries who have promoted such systems will be left scrambling.
57.2 COMMENTS ON FISHER'S "RESPONSE TO TRLN COPYRIGHT DOCUMENT"
John Evans, University of Missouri, ELSEVANS@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu.
While Ms. Fisher raises some interesting and valid points about possible problems with the TRLN copyright document, I find some of what she writes to be overstated. For example, how well does Ms. Fisher know her constituency? She asserts that "a hundred research libraries could share one subscription by means of photocopy machine, fax, and electronic mail. Journals of both non-profit and commercial publishers and in all disciplines would be driven out of business by such pooling." This seems unrealistic and alarmist. First, libraries still recognize archiving as one of their primary responsibilities, and I have yet to meet the librarian who did not consider it infinitely preferable to have materials on hand rather than in "pools" whenever possible. Second, this "pooling" issue seems to ignore the incredible increases in cost associated with interlibrary loaning (via the technology of your choice) one copy of a journal or article. Who will be the "lucky" library who archives this single copy, and then gets to reproduce it for the other 99 institutions? And how long will this single copy hold up under such intensive duplication before it simply disintegrates? The one "archivally acceptable" exception would be electronic duplication, and even this option would only be acceptable if the journal was composed in electronic format, or the issue would need to be mutilated to scan into the computer for complete transfer. (True, once it was scanned it could be disseminated at will, but this goes back to the "hard copy whenever possible" point I mentioned earlier.) And finally, has Ms. Fisher ever tried to get 10, or 5, or even 3 libraries to agree on resource sharing, let alone 100? The history of library science is littered with grand designs for resource sharing that were scuttled because of problems ranging from personal differences to legislative difficulties. OCLC is far and away the most successful resource sharing endeavor in library history, and it only shares records about resources, not the resources themselves.
Later Ms. Fisher states that "Generally income from our rights agreements is a very small percentage of revenues. Our most used journals receive about 10% of their revenue from subsidiary rights." 10%? Many publishers routinely raise their prices in excess of 10% per year, just to cover "inflation." I realize that if the prices of journals (the most-used ones; we assume that the less-used titles realize an even smaller percentage of their revenues from rights agreements) were raised 10% to recoup the entire loss of subsidiary rights + an inflation increase then we would be looking at a significant increase, but in many cases it doesn't sound like the pill would be any more bitter than the ones librarians and library administrators have been forced to swallow year after year for the last decade or so.
I really believe the intent of the TRLN document is to slow the breathtakingly rapid price increases among the commercial publishers, not drive the Scholarly Societies and University Presses out of existence. (I may be mistaken in this, and apparently some other people are confused about the issue as well; perhaps a clarification on this point is in order.) After all, Societies and University Presses have been repeatedly praised in this newsletter and the _Chronicle_, among other places, as doing a far better job of controlling costs than their commercial counterparts. Many people have even advocated returning all peer-review journal publication to the University and Society houses, from which it arose in the first place. And, faculty are generally intelligent, thoughtful, and insightful persons, who are capable of understanding both the TRLN document and the forces behind its creation, and able to use such an instrument with discretion and precision. In other words, just because the TRLN document exists doesn't mean every faculty member must use it for every article they wish to publish (although this may be considered the ideal in certain circles).
On the other side, has anyone addressed the difficulties which the secondary publishers (UMI, Information Access, Mead Data, Bowker) will experience in securing copyright from each author, or is this covered in the 'Authorization to Publish' section of the original TRLN document under "This authorization does not transfer to the Publisher copyright in the Article, nor the right to grant or deny permission for the reproduction of the Article in other forms, with the exception of limited reproduction by abstracting and indexing services."? This would seem to cover some, but not all, of the secondary instances cited above, but does not include full-text reproduction (UMI, for instance).
Also, is Ms. Fisher's comment that "each professor would have the responsibility to register copyright with LC" correct? If so, this may be a deceptively costly and time-consuming side effect of copyright retention.
Personally, I do not feel well versed enough in the issues addressed by the TRLN document to offer an opinion about its viability as a device to "reform" scholarly publishing. However, I do know that proper evaluation of any such document requires a temperate, well-reasoned evaluation of its potential impact, rather than appeals designed to obscure the issues which most need examination.
The mailbox is: tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu.
>From Hannah King, SUNY HSC Library at Syracuse, kingh@vax.cs.hscsyr.edu:
Vendors assure us that serials prices are set by the publisher. I am again trying to figure out the price of a subscription and wonder if both vendors and other serial librarians could comment on the following problem.
We subscribed to the _British Journal of Hospital Medicine_ in May of 1991 to cover the period 1/92 to 12/92. We paid $145.58 in May, 1991; $2.43 in a supplemental invoice in April, 1992 for a total of $148.01. According to the advertising in the an issue's front pages the journal subscription rate is 160 pounds. I've just received, in October, an invoice for $99.00 more on this title. How do I know what the correct price should be? I believe I should pay the rate existing at the time my vendor placed my subscription order, the rate in effect as of November, 1991. As the person responsible for ensuring correct billing and payment in my library and for my institution, I should be able to verify the accuracy of any and all billings. Yet, this one stymies me. I wonder if the rest of you have developed a way of verifying the accuracy of vendor invoices.
This problem is particularly vexing since we did not receive 2 issues of the journal and the publishers refuse to honor our claims.
>From Kent McKeever, Columbia University Law Library, mckeever@lawmail.law.columbia.edu:
In response to the latest newsletter:
The Blackwell price letter is dated September 10th. Six days later the pound started imploding. It is now worth roughly $1.58, not the $1.98 cited in the letter and well below their lowest cited working rate of $1.76. Have they sent anything since then to acknowledge this more than 20% devaluation of the pound?
>From Jim Thompson, University of California at Riverside, THOMPSON@UCRAC1.UCR.EDU:
In no. 56.3, Robert Campbell of Blackwell Scientific Publications reminds us, yet again, that "the current weakness of the dollar is driving up the dollar price of journals from Europe." I've seen similar statements, in my mail and in the NEWSLETTER, from every publisher I can think of who publishes anything in Europe.
But in reading my local newspaper, I note that the dollar has turned around and has been RISING SHARPLY against most European currencies for some time now. So I have been eagerly awaiting a slew of letters and articles from these same publishers, announcing new reduced prices for 1993 journal subscriptions. Oddly, no such letters have crossed my desk.
If the publishers have been trying to economize by sending announcements of price reductions only to you for general circulation through the NEWSLETTER, would you please be so kind as to publish them soon so that we can divert the money saved to other worthy purposes?
[Blackwell notice was addressed to my department. -ed.]
>From Nancy Anderson, University of Illinois, NDANDERS@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu:
The Mathematics Departmet at the University of Illinois responded in what I think is a creative way to my announcement that Wiley was raising their price of NUMERICAL METHODS FOR PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS from $285 to $430 per year. I had asked if anyone minded if I cancelled this journal as it did not rank highly on my list of titles to keep or cancel. Let me quote from the letter to Wiley from the Associate Chair of the Department.
Our department is incensed at the unreasonable increases in the prices of all mathematical journals and the inability of any library budget to keep up with them. I have discussed this matter with my wife who is Journals Manager at the University of Illinois (Press) and she also feels that there is some profiteering at the expense of a captive audience going on.
I consider this sort of price increase rather short-sighted for a major publisher. A department like ours adopts a large number of texts. In most cases there is rather little difference between competing texts and rather small issues influence the decision. I am sure that the reputation of the publisher in dealing with the Mathematics community is not just a small issue.
I enclose a list of (9) Wiley texts we are currently using.
>From David S. Crawford, Health Sciences Library, McGill, MI66@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA:
I do not often look at book catalogues but I recently saw a copy of one on "Journals and Books in Immunology" from our old friends Harwood Academic and Gordon and Breach. To my surprise I saw that they have now started differential pricing for BOOKS. This may be old hat to most of us but it was a surprise to me. (Individual "discounts" are quite big, $120 vs $72 for individuals.) Individual orders must be prepaid and individuals can also avoid postage and handling charges by joining the Science and Arts Society (SAS) Bookclub - cost $8. Interesting stuff ....
>From Nelda J. Elder, Kansas State University,NELDER@KSUVM.KSU.EDU:
In NSPI #55, 55.3, Donna Lively, UT-Arlington, states that "about 29 corporations own very nearly all media outlets in the world...." I was wondering if there is a list of these 29 corporations or if someone would care to compile one for NSPI readers' edification. Thanks.
Donna Lively, LIVELY@library.uta.edu, replies:
OK, first, prompted by your questions, I checked one of my sources (THE MEDIA MONOPOLY, 2nd ed. Ben Bagdikian. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987) and I discovered that it was 24 corporations not 29. These are 1986 figures. The more recent source is presently checked out.
Next, this source does not really make it clear how comprehensive these companies' influence or control is on a worldwide basis, so I may have overstated it somewhat with the "...very nearly all media outlets in the world." However, for the United States, most of the rest of the Western Hemisphere, England and probably Australia, the control is pretty comprehensive. Also, it was pointed out that in the 1970s approximately 50 business entities controlled the same amount of media outlets and by 1986 the number fell by nearly half. In the past six years, the number has likely fallen further. Last, the process of "engulf and devour" has also been occurring continuously on an international level, witness the recent gobbling up of Pergamon.
Anyway, here is the 1986 list of corporations. (Keep in mind that by now it has likely changed some.):
1. Advance Publ (Newhouse) 13. Reader's Digest
2. Capital Cities/ABC 14. Scripps-Howard
3. CBS 15. Storer
4. Cox Communications 16. Taft
5. Dow Jones & Co. 17. Time, Inc.
6. Gannett 18. Times-Mirror
7. General Electric (NBC) 19. Triangle
8. Hearst 20. Tribune Co.
9. Knight-Rider 21. [omitted
inadvertently? -ed.]
10. McGraw-Hill 22. Turner Broadcasting
11. News Corp. (Murdoch) 23. U.S. News and World Report
12. New York Times 24. Westinghouse
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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 27599-3938; Telephone: 919 962-1067; FAX: 919 962-0484. Editorial Board: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Jerry Curtis (Springer Verlag New York), Janet Fisher (MIT Press), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), James Mouw (University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division). The Newsletter is available on the Internet and Blackwell's CONNECT. EBSCO and Readmore Academic customers may receive the Newsletter in paper format from these companies.
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