Barbara Palmer, Harvard University, provided 1998 prices for General Relativity and Gravitation (Plenum). Special software called RealPage must be downloaded for electronic access to this journal. Peter Boyce, AAS, urged libraries to refuse to buy electronic journals having proprietary software for the time being. He thinks this might ensure a future where all publishers provide electronic journals that use commonly available tools. He was also concerned about the ultimate longevity of electronic journals stored in proprietary formats.
MATH JOURNALS AND LIBRARIES
Silvio Levy provided a write-up of his remarks on math journals and libraries at an AMS meeting in January. The panel was called "The Electronic Environment: Changing the Relationship Between Mathematician and Librarian." He indicated that three key ingredients are almost never found together: first-hand exposure to prices, decision-making power, and mathematical knowledge. He thinks faculty library committees are a good way to combine these three elements provided they are in close contact with librarians, take their work seriously, and are empowered to make difficult decisions.
Besides rising prices, Levy thinks that the main reason libraries are in dire straits is the excessive number of journals. He believes that the focus in tenure and promotion decisions should be shifted away from the number of publications (but not the quality). NSF review of grant proposals was suggested by Levy as a good model. NSF asks the applicant to list what he/she considers his/her ten top papers.
Regarding responsibility to parts of the world where electronic publications cannot be accessed, Levy thinks this concern is misguided. He states that in 1998 a library that cannot afford access to the Internet is not buying much in the way of paper journals either. And the relative cost of electronic vs. paper for such libraries will keep dropping. Levy believes that editorial input does add value and that the final product would not be as good without such input. He thinks that mathematicians should publish in electronic journals, but support only journals that take archiving seriously and that "sell" or "give away" information rather than "renting" it.
JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
The Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP) is being published by SISSA [International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy]. The JHEP software has been written to show that is it possible to run a peer review scientific journal better and at lower cost than currently done by commercial publishers. Online access is expected to remain free even after the first two years with funding provided by universities and public money. There is an agreement with the Italian Physics Society (SIF) to publish a print and CD-ROM edition (JHEP Archive). More information and subscription rates for the CD-ROM version are available at http://www.sif.it/sif/jhep/archive-en.html.
Opinions differed on how to publicize and archive electronic journals such as JHEP. Possibilities suggested included linking from a library web page, cataloging, printing tables of contents for display, or printing articles for future binding and archiving. David Stern, Yale, suggested that the solution to archiving electronic tools will come eventually, and in the meantime it did not make sense to use labor intensive methods on short-term solutions. He considered provision of paper table of contents an approach doomed to failure as the scale of the operation grows; he recommended patron generated solutions such as Current Contents. Dana Roth, Cal Tech, pointed out that we are in a transition mode that might justify provision of printed tables of contents of electronic journals on display racks, for the time being, to assist users in changing their information gathering behavior.
INSPEC ON OVID
Bob Michaelson urges that anyone considering Ovid for INSPEC make sure that they get a workable product. Northwestern, at Ovid's request, did not upgrade the operating system on the IBM UNIX server from AIX 4.1 to AIX 4.2. This caused problems in loading the INSPEC files and as a result they have only been able to use the files from May 1995 to the present. Ovid says that their Spring release will have improvements that will allow it to run on the AIX 4.2 operating system.
NEW PHYSICS JOURNALS
The Institute of Physics will launch publication of a peer reviewed electronic journal, Accelerator Machine Physics (http://www.iop.org/Physics/News/0093j) in 1998. This free journal will cover the design and development of accelerators. An electronic archive will be maintained, and hard copies will be distributed to all subscribers as an archival supplement to Journal of Physics G.
The American Physical Society (APS) is announcing a free peer reviewed electronic journal, Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams. This is the first in a series of Special Topics journals. APS indicates that it will ensure the continued availability of the electronic archive of this and other APS journals as electronic publishing technology changes.
EULER PROJECT
Information on the Euler Project comes from the January 1998 issue of Digital Libraries News (archives at: http://cimic.rutgers.edu/~ieeedln). EULER (European Libraries and Electronic Resources in Mathematical Sciences), scheduled to start in 1998 for a 30 month period, will provide "one-stop shopping" by integrating bibliographic databases, online public access catalogs, electronic journals from academic publishers, online archives of preprints and grey literature, and indexes of mathematical Internet resources. The EULER Engine will allow the user to search relevant topics in all sources at once. More information can be found at http://www.emis.de/projects/EULER/.
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS ABSTRACTS
Brenda Corbin, U.S. Naval Observatory, passes along the news that publication of Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts (AAA) will continue, at least for the short term and perhaps for the long term. She forwarded information from Dr. Roland Wielen, Director of the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (ARI), regarding the future of the bibliography AAA, the online bibliographical database ARIBIB, and the question of cooperation between the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (ARI) and the ADS bibliographical database. Most of the information in the printed version of AAA is available online in INSPEC which is distributed against charges by IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers) and FIZ (Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe)/STN. The main contents of AAA without the summaries will soon be available online in ARIBIB with free access to AAA subscribers. In order to protect the economic interests of IEE and FIZ, who provide the majority of the abstracts for AAA, it is not feasible to provide abstracts online in ARIBIB. Astronomers who wish to see the abstract of an article found in ARIBIB may refer to the printed volumes of AAA using the reference numbers found in ARIBIB. ARI cannot give the information in the AAA bibliography to any other party, such as ADS bibliographical database, again to protect IEE and FIZ.
The ADS Group expressed hope that a solution could be found which would allow astronomers to have unified electronic access to all astronomical bibliographic information.
HANDBOOK OF OPTICAL CONSTANTS OF SOLIDS
Academic Press recently published Handbook of Optical Solids, v.1-5. V.1 and 2 are reprints of volumes published in 1985 and 1991, respectively. V. 1-3 comprise the material edited by Palik and v.4 is the index to the 3v.set. V.5 by Gorachand Ghosh is a separate work, related to the Handbook, but not really intrinsic to the set. Different answers were received by PAM members as to whether the whole 5v. set must be purchased or whether v.3-5 could be purchased as separate volumes. The lesson seems to be to purchase carefully.
CONFERENCES IN JOURNALS
An inquiry was made regarding treatment of conferences included in journal issues. The questioner wondered if other libraries were relying on indexing services to pick these up or cataloging them for their online catalogs. Some libraries indicated that they used to provide analytics in their general online catalog or in a separate catalog but now rely on proceedings indexes or indexing services because of cost and staffing considerations.
PROCEEDINGS IN NONLINEAR ANALYSIS
Nonlinear Analysis, v.30 (1977), containing the Proceedings of the Second World Congress of Nonlinear Analysts, was published as an optional volume in 7 parts at $1107 in addition to the almost $2500 subscription. Martha Tucker, University of Washington, suggested that it would have been better to publish it as a monograph; she solved the problem by filling the gap in the collection with a block containing an explanation for the absence of the volume. Individual mathematicians (conference participants?) were able to get this volume at a much lower pre-publication price of $80. A recent article in Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues (http://www.lib.unc.edu/prices/1996/PRIC162.HTML#162.1) by Richard Meyer provides Title/Price to Library/Price to Individual/Index figures for 15 journals. Comments on this article are available at http://www.lib.unc.edu/prices/1996/PRIC163.HTML.
PAMNET CONVERSATIONS
David Stern, list owner for PAMnet, pointed out that people posting to the list have an obligation to be constructive in their criticism. He urged a lively debate on relevant topics with a healthy amount of personal opinion based upon years of experience, but with contributions kept factual and considerate. Arthur Smith, American Physical Society, commented that he found it valuable to have a place to communicate on physical science publishing issues that includes librarians and publishers and he hoped that the relationship is not always viewed as adversarial.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS NEWSLETTER
The electronic International Press Newsletter can be requested by sending an e-mail message to Hugh Rutledge (hugh@descartes.intlpress.com).
INSPEC PRICING
INSPEC has recently revised its pricing and withdrawn the special pricing for First Search through OCLC. No general pricing announcement is being made at this time because the price change may affect customers differently depending on their circumstances, e.g. whether purchased through a reseller or leased directly from INSPEC. Jim Ashling, IEE, indicates that they have recently recognized that the base price for unlimited site wide access needed to be reduced to attract growth in this type of access and they have reacted accordingly. Customers may request a site license price quote via e-mail to inspec.iee.org.uk. Concern was expressed by Ian Gordon, Brock University, regarding small and medium sized universities that have relied on a pay-per-search system. Ashling states that OCLC is free to offer standard pay-as-you-go services (e.g. EPIC) or pay-per-hit or site licenses.
INTERNET SITES NOTED
Complete 1996 math library survey report with a link to the budgetary information: http://wsrv.clas.virginia.edu/~jlr5m/survey/survey.html
The Astronomical Journal: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJ/journal/
American Astronomical Society membership directory: http://directory.aas.org/
Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices with many articles full text: http://www.blacksci.co.uk/products/journals/mnras.htm
Archives of Young Mathematicians Network: http://www.math.usouthal.edu/~brick/ymn/archive.html
Recently updated PAM journal cancellation list: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dstern/alphacan.html
Movie showing asteroid that will come very close to Earth in 2028: http://www.astro.washington.edu/deutsch/misc/asteroid/
IMS Metadata Project (specifications and definitions for 35 metadata fields): http://www.iat.unc.edu/
Annual Reviews free trial period (searchable abstracts of current articles, bibliographic information for all articles since 1984): http://www.AnnualReviews.org
Articles on state of UC-Berkeley Libraries: http://www.alumni.berkeley.edu/monthly/monthly_index/feb_98/library.html
ARTICLES NOTED
Branin, Joseph J. and Mary Case. "Reforming Scholarly Publishing in the Sciences: A Librarian Perspective." Notices of the American Mathematical Society 45 (April 1998):475-86. Grothkopf, U. "Bits and Bytes and Still a Lot of Paper: Astronomy Libraries and Librarians in the Age of Electronic Publishing" Astrophysics and Space Science 247 (1997):155-174.
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