Electronic journals are revolutionizing the way in which libraries of all kinds provide access to periodical literature. Learn about the development of online journals from the gopher to the World Wide Web, from issues sent to an individual's email account to collections of titles replete with tables and colorful graphics. Find out about the evolving definition of "serial" in the dynamic electronic arena, hear about the latest trends and get a preview of what the electronic future might hold. Explore emerging cataloging standards, collection management issues and the challenges of providing multiple methods and levels of access to patrons.
Ann Okerson
Associate University Librarian
Yale University
Regina Reynolds
Head, National Serials Data Program
Library of Congress
Crystal Graham
Head, Digital Information and Serials Cataloging Section
University of California, San Diego
Sponsored by the ALCTS Serials Section and co-sponsored, in name only, by the ALCTS, Acquisitions Section, Cataloging and Classification Section, Collection Management and Development Section, Preservation and Reformatting Section and the Council of Regional Groups and the LITA Serials Automation Interest Group.
184.2 ACADEMIC'S IDEAL
Mignon Adams, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science,
adams@shrsys.hslc.org
I have viewed the discussion on Academic's IDEAL program with interest, since for the second time in a year we are considering participation.
Our interest in participation reflects our long-term plan to maintain a core print collection, supplemented with electronic access. While we may well indeed join the IDEAL program, since it's the first such program available which has many science journals, I have severe reservations about its coverage, its charges, and its use, as well as the basic model of publishers' collections with their own search engine.
Academic Press's 175 journals are quite interdisciplinary. With a few notable exceptions, their journals are not the most highly-regarded in their respective fields. Purchasing their collection will neither give good coverage in any one discipline nor give researchers in most disciplines access to the journals they most want.
Moreover, there is no logical reason for a researcher -- say a toxicologist -- to search Academic Press's collection for the couple of toxicology journals that are within the collection. If, as Academic Press has told other scholarly publishers, this is the wave of the future, this wave does indeed flow backwards.
Huge, comprehensive scientific databases have been constructed so that researchers can with one well-constructed search feel reasonably certain that they have covered most of the relevant literature (one can never feel completely certain). Now, do I tell the toxicologist that he/she must search Academic Press's database, Elsevier's database, and whatever other publisher who will soon have theirs available? And then do a Chem Abstracts search to pick up the others?
Or, perhaps, the toxicologist can do a Chem Abstracts search and then go through and pick out the Academic Press journals, the Elsevier, etc....is this what "ease" of electronic access will yield?
Academic Press states that they have "4 or 5 million academic users." First of all, not all the institutions (mine, for example) listed on their home page are actually subscribers. Second, the report back from the first consortial offer that we considered is that the use has been minimal (and this is also what I hear from libraries who participate in Project Muse). Part of this may be a technology lag; as more and more campuses are completely wired, and all faculty have computer equipment capable of handling graphics, this use may go up. Or, because of the amount of effort required to search multiple databases, with very little return from any one database, the use may never go up. Academic Press should probably rephrase their statement to "several million academics who have the possibility of using their database."
And then there is their Byzantine method of pricing....which I have given up trying to describe to any academic administrator.
As a first effort in electronic provision of materials, IDEAL isn't a bad try. In particular, participation in IDEAL may give small institutions, which receive no Academic Press journals, a relatively inexpensive way to try out electronic journal access. However, I can't believe that this model is one that can last long in the marketplace.
184.3 SCIENTIFIC/TECHNICAL JOURNAL MARKET
Stephen J. Bensman, Louisiana State University,
notsjb@unix1.sncc.lsu.edu
I have been following the debate in the PRICING NEWSLETTER with some bemusement. At LSU I am completing an analysis of the library market for scientific/technical journals. The first part of this analysis has been published in LRTS (April 1996). In this analysis I utilize a computer program which I have developed and called the Serials Evaluator. The Evaluator compares the scientific/technical value of serials to their prices, thereby making the library market for scientific/technical journals efficient.
I am finding that the library market for scientific/technical journals is completely irrational. Scientific/technical value plays no role in the pricing of scientific/technical journals. As a matter of fact, the market is extremely bifurcated with scientific/ technical value concentrated mainly on the journals of the US scientific/technical associations and costs concentrated on the journals put out by the commercial -- largely foreign --publishers. Much of what the commercial publishers put out is of secondary, marginal, or no importance in the scientific/technical sense, and therefore it is little used or cited and has little chance of being used or cited. The commercials are selling bad science for top dollar.
Under these conditions it is senseless for libraries to build such journals into their fixed costs by subscribing to them in any form. It is far better to provide access to them on a document delivery basis, paying for their articles only when used and thus converting them into variable costs. This would convert them into market commodities on the free market. Therefore libraries should be negotiating document delivery contracts, not subscription contracts. The commercials can charge whatever they want for these articles; they will not be used. Once the commercials have to absorb the cost of bad science and technology information, they may stop producing it. Science and technology will not suffer. They may strike back by not making them available on the free market. All the better, since they will not be there to be purchased. Science and technology will not suffer.
This may end another irrationality of the library market for scientific/technical journals. Economics is supposed to dictate that when there is a surplus of a product, the producers should stop producing it and lower the prices to clear the market. This is obviously not happening. Libraries are buying less and less, but the number and prices of scientific/technical journals keeps going up. This is contrary to economic logic and is probably the result of the abuse of the subscription system under the conditions of an inefficient market. It seems that the solution may be for the libraries to begin to convert the market for scientific/technical information into a free market through the document delivery of high cost, low value information.
184.4 ROB KIRBY'S STUDY ON HIGH PRICES OF SOME MATH JOURNALS
Rob Kirby, University of California, Berkeley,
kirby@math.berkeley.edu
[Editor's note: Several weeks ago Professor Kirby wrote a widely-disseminated letter to his mathematics colleagues about the high prices of some of their discipline's journals and urging them not to publish in expensive journals. The letter included several appendixes, among them a list of math journals with their prices and a ranked list of these journals by price per page. Several pricing newsletter readers recommended that we publish Professor Kirby's letter, but the entire package was far too long. It seemed highly appropriate for the World Wide Web. Now, via PAMNET, and reprinted with the author's permission, comes the following message.]
Colleagues: I have written a long letter/article on the high prices of some math journals. It contains several appendices giving comparative prices of journals in cents/page and cents/10,000 characters. The article discusses the impact of these prices on our libraries and suggests some steps we might take. The article can be found on my web page at
and I encourage you to read it and discuss it with your colleagues. If you would prefer, I can send the article by email; just let me know.
Some of you will have seen an earlier version of this article. The current version has the additional table on price per 10,000 characters, a plea that you retain your copyright for the purposes of electronic distribution (when giving a journal the right to publish your paper), and modest rewriting of the prose.
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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 Chapel 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 Scientific 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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