Received March 17, 1999.
Thank you for asking the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) to respond to the listserv message, "Pricing of Datasets on the Web" by Colin Gerrard, published in Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues regarding the ISI product, Journal Citation Reports on the Web. I apologize for the delay in getting back to you.
Gerrard's comments were very complimentary as to the usage of the Journal Citation Reports as an evaluative tool. The JCR does offer a systematic, objective means of determining the relative importance of science and social science journals within their subject category and does serve as one tool for the management and budgeting of journal collections. Besides being used as an evaluative tool for selection and deselection by libraries, the JCR is used by faculty to identify journals in which to publish, confirm the status of journals in which they have already published, and identify journals relevant to their research. In addition, information analysts for years have used the JCR to track bibliometric trends, study the sociology of scholarly and technical publications, and study citation patterns within and between disciplines.
We were very pleased to be able to move the format of the Journal Citation Reports to an electronic format in the early 90's. Making this resource available via CD-ROM certainly made the analytical tasks easier for all users. Today we still support a microfiche version and the CD-ROM format, and, as Gerrard commented, we introduced Web availability earlier this year.
All three versions present a wealth of statistical data drawing, from the vast multidisciplinary ISI database. Using citation analysis, this unique resource answers such questions as to the citation frequency of a journal and which journals are cited by a particular journal.
The newly released JCR on the Web offers some additional features and benefits.
* The subscription cost of the initial Internet release of the JCR on the Web includes two years of data: the 1997 (now available) and 1998 (to be released July 1999) JCR Sciences and Social Sciences Editions. The Science Edition provides citation data on nearly 5,000 leading science journals; the Social Sciences Edition covers 1,700 international journals.
* Access via the Web allows for this resource to be made available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to a much wider audience.
* Sophisticated Web-based software offers five primary data fields with a high level of flexibility in manipulating the data with the option to download JCR records to personal databases.
* Ongoing development will lead to a seamless link between the Citation Databases available via the Web of Science and the JCR on the Web.
In addition, I would like to point out that the University of Kent will not be charged VAT as invoices are in dollars from the US. Furthermore, the University does have an opportunity to join the CHEST consortium for the JCR. This option will offer special consortium pricing (but -- to be fair -- will include a charge for VAT).
We thank you for the opportunity to respond.
219.2 EBSCO PRELIMINARY PRICE PROJECTIONS FOR YEAR 2000,
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS FOR 1999 RELEASED
Thomas Mitchell, Public Relations/Communications Manager, EBSCO
Information Services, tjmitchell@ebsco.com
Received April 9, 1999.
Projections for Year 2000: Most major publishers have not yet provided year 2000 price estimates. However, those who have are indicating price increases will be somewhat less than that experienced in the recent past. Based on this as well as historical analysis of journal prices, EBSCO Subscription Services is projecting price increases in the range of 8.5 to 10.5 percent for U.S. and non-U.S. titles for year 2000 orders. The forecast for non-U.S. publications considers prices in publisher currencies and does not factor the impact of potential currency fluctuations.
Factors influencing prices for the year 2000 include publisher pricing policies regarding online journals, general economic conditions and currency impact (this year the Euro will bring a new wrinkle to this factor). We will continue to monitor these factors as well as information received from publishers and will update our projections as the year progresses.
Actual Increases for 1999: Academic customers paying for 1999 subscriptions in U.S. dollars experienced an overall price increase in the 8 percent range. Corporate and public library subscription prices increased in the 4 to 7 percent range. Price increases for non-U.S. publications were mitigated to some extent by a stronger U.S. dollar. The chart below presents 1999 price increase percentages.
Library Type U.S. Titles Non-U.S. Titles Overall Academic (ARL) 9.8 7.1 8.3 College and University 9.3 7.9 8.7 Medical 11.7 6.6 8.9 Corporate 7.1 6.7 6.9 Public 4.1 6.6 4.4
For more information, please visit the EBSCO World Wide site at http://www.ebsco.com/.
Released: March 31, 1999
219.3 FROM THE MAILBOX
The mailbox is marcia_tuttle@unc.edu
From Dana Roth. Caltech, dzrlib@library.caltech.edu (received March 15, 1999):
Gordon & Breach announced that more than 75 G&B academic journals are definitively priced for the year.
What a concept!!!
G&B actually makes a commitment to subscribers that there will be no supplemental billings for additional material during the course of the year, BUT only for those 75 titles.
For those of you with G&B journals in your collections, here is an update on their most expensive titles.
Title Price Ferroelectrics and Integrated Ferroelectrics $13,809 Molecular Crystals & Liquid Crystals $13.594 Phosphorus, Sulfur & Silicon ... $11,784
If you want online access (along with an archival CD-ROM), it's yours for only 15% more.
It seems amazing that one can subscribe to the complete ACS
journal package (including online access) for less than the cost
of these three titles, especially when you consider that the ACS
journals are not subsidized.
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From Monika Cremer, Nds. Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Goettingen, cremer@mail.sub.uni0-goettingen.de (Received March 16, 1999):
The Lower Saxony State Library and University Library of
Goettingen is committed to select and store German and foreign
publications concerning the field of library science. We have
therefore, with the editor's permission, set up a mirror site of
the Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues on our library server.
The url is http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/edoc/aw/nspi/
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From Christopher Schneider, Gordon and Breach, christopher.schneider@gbhap.com (Received April 8, 1999):
A final, and objective, review on the Lanham Act may be found in New York Law Journal, March 15th, "Definition of Lanham Act's 'Advertising or Promotion' Adeptly Stretched by Courts".
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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 Technology and Networks at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as news is available. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, Internet: marcia_tuttle@unc.edu; Telephone: 919 929-3513; Fax: 919 960-0847. Editorial Board: Keith Courtney (Taylor and Francis Ltd), Fred Friend (University College, London), Birdie MacLennan (University of Vermont), Michael Markwith (Swets Subscription Services, Inc.), James Mouw (University of Chicago), Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division), David Stern (Yale University), and Scott Wicks (Cornell University).
To subscribe to the newsletter send a message to LISTPROC@UNC.EDU saying SUBSCRIBE PRICES [YOUR NAME]. Be sure to send that message to the listserver and not to Prices. You must include your name. To unsubscribe (no name required in message), you must send the message from the e-mail address by which you are subscribed. If you have problems, please contact the editor.
Back issues of the Newsletter are archived on 2 World Wide Web sites. At
UNC-Chapel Hill the url is: http://www.lib.unc.edu/prices/. At Grenoble the url is: http://www-mathdoc.ujf-grenoble.fr/NSPI/NSPI.html.
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