178.1 FROM THE EDITOR
Marcia Tuttle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu
We have had several messages in response to Ken Rouse's article in issue 177. However, because these comments are still coming in and because there are messages on other topics waiting to be posted, all response to the Rouse article will be in issue no. 1 79, which I hope to distribute early next week. There's still time to comment!
There's always housekeeping to do! Recently I have received several messages from subscribers who told me they had not received any issues of the newsletter after no. 166 last October. Something obviously happened at that time! If you try to resubscribe, the list processor tells you that you are already a subscriber. It's correct; you are still on the mailing list, but you aren't getting your issues. If you are reading this issue on the web, or if you are reading someone else's copy and if you want to get your own copy again, the postmaster's suggestion is that you unsubscribe and resubscribe. To do that, send a message to listproc@unc.edu saying "unsubscribe prices." Without the quotes and without your name. To resubscribe, send a message to the s ame place and say: subscribe prices [your real name]. Without the brackets and using whatever name you want to be listed by. You should get a welcome message. If you don't get any issues by the end of May, please notify me at the e-mail address listed abo ve, and we will try to figure something out.
178.2 MESSAGE FROM HARRY HOFFER
Marcia Tuttle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu
Harry Hoffer, formerly Director of Publishers' Services and International Sales of Readmore Inc., has left Readmore. He would like to extend his best wishes and thanks to the publishers and librarians with whom he has worked and whom he has assisted over the 20 years he was with Readmore. He expresses his gratitude to them for all the friendship and respect that they have shown to him. Harry is still in New York City and can be reached at hoffer@juno.com.
[Speaking as a serials librarian, I want to thank Harry for his professional friendship over the last several years, for news, advice, gossip, warnings, and all the rest. I miss him, and I know many, many others in our profession and beyond it remember with warmth Harry's service to us. And can it be that the internat ional publishers will no longer be "Hofferized"?? -Marcia]
178.3 WHY ARE LIBRARIANS TALKING TO PUBLISHERS? REPRISE
Fred Friend, University College, London, ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk
Since writing the contribution which appeared in Newsletter 173, I have been feeling my way towards an answer to my own question. First may I thank those publishers and librarians who responded. Yes, I recognise that the solution to the problems we face d oes involve talking to a wider community of funding bodies, authors and users, and part of my purpose was to consider how publishers and librarians might jointly engage in such discussions. We are not always on opposite sides of the table. Also I am grate ful to those who made a challenge to my assumption on the applicability of the 80/20 rule to the reading of journals. Whatever the statistical position is, I am glad that I posed the question, because it is an issue that we have to consider in determining the right balance between subscriptions and document delivery, a choice that will become even more important for electronic public ations.
The main issue that I tried to raise, perhaps not clearly, was whether we should give up talking to publishers about moderating price increases, leaving the cancellation process to solve that problem, and concentrate on other topics where more positive re sults might be achieved. Since writing the article for the Newsletter I have been involved in very constructive discussion with publishers on matters other than pricing. For example working parties in the UK are close to agreement with representatives of the Publishers' Association on two matters on which there has been considerable disagreement in the past: the terms of a model licence and the arrangements for fair dealing in electr onic publications. When a consultation document on these matters is issued in a month or two's time we shall have to hope that agreement in the working parties is confirmed by the wider communities, but I do sense a willingness by publishers and librarians to discuss such issues in a spirit removed from the bitter arguments over pricing. There are still difficult areas, for example in the arrangements for inter-library loan, but thankfully we do seem to have passed through the defensive barrier o f "no negotiation on electronic licensing."
178.4 IEEE COPYRIGHT FEE FOR CREATING AN ELECTRONIC
COPY OF A JOURNAL ARTICLE
Elizabeth Gadd, Project ACORN Liaison Officer, Loughborough
University; submitted by Hazel Woodward, Loughborough University, H.M.Woodward@lboro.ac.uk
Project ACORN (Access to Course Readings via Networks) is an eLib project funded by the Joint Information Services Committee. The remit of the project is to set up an electronic collection of high-demand journal articles on reading lists for use by underg raduate students. In order to achieve our objective we have had to approach 84 publishers individually to request permission to make electronic copies of their journal articles. Fifty-nine publishers agreed to participate with ACORN. Fifty-four agreed to make no permission charge and 4 charged a minimal rate. One publisher, however, the IEEE, asked the project to pay an enormous "standard" permission charge of $25 per digitised page. There were two articles concerned. One was actually written by a memb er of Loughborough University -- a fact which was drawn to the attention of the IEEE. They then agreed to make no charge for this article, but still insisted on charging $25 per page for the other. The article in question was 15 pages long, making the proposed fee $375. The most frustrating element of this charge was that the article was only to be made available to 4 students for a period of three months: facts of which the IEEE had been made clearly aware. How can such a fee be justified? Have other libraries had similar experiences?
178.5 FROM THE MAILBOX
The mailbox is: tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu
From Dana Roth, Caltech, dzrlib@cco.caltech.edu:
The Annual Reviews price increase [discussed in newsletter 176] is an excellent example of "no good deed goes unpunished." These volumes have been an incredible bargain for decades and compared with other 'annuals' remain fairly priced. As lib rarians, we should be careful who we criticize. Annual Reviews merits our support in these difficult times, not our misplaced hostility.
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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 University of North Carolina at Ch
apel Hill.
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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 through Academic and Networking 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: 919 962-8047; FAX: 919 962-4450. Editorial Board: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Christian Boissonnas (Cornell University), Jerry Curtis (Springer Verlag New York), Isabel Czech (Institute for Scien
tific Information), Janet Fisher (MIT Press), Fred Friend (University College, London), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), Daniel Jones (University of Texas Health Science Center), Michael Markwith (Swets North America), James Mouw (University
of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division). The Newsletter is available on the Internet, Blackwell's CONNECT, and Readmore's ROSS. EBSCO customers may receive the Newsletter in paper format.
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