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The following observations and opinions, regarding the escalating cost of Journals, are submitted by Phyllis Vicars, head librarian at Unocal: Yes, I see a lot of this discussion in the library literature as well, especially re electronic publishing. One of the more trenchant papers recently discussed the problems of citations from electronic journals: how can the citer be sure the paper they are citing has not been altered in the interim between reading it and citing it. Re cost: the serials librarians problems are not so much with professional societies' publications, which are very affordably priced (for the most part), but with those prestige publications from commercial publishers: Elsevier, Pergamon, etc. (the Low Countries Mafia, in the words of one Georgia library director). An economist colleague explained to him the concept of inelastic demand and journal pricing: a particular journal is recognized as the leader in its field = to have your degree program accredited, your library must subscribe to it = to be promoted for tenure or to make a name for yourself in your field, you need to be published in it = the publisher can charge any price they jolly well choose, because it is a "must have". Another cause is what librarians call twigging: a journal begins with a fairly broad scope, then branches out into multiple titles, each highly specialized, appealing to a miniscule number of scientists throughout the universe, and horrendously priced. How much publishing is really this relevant and how much is really stuffing? In my view, therefore, a lot of the problem begins, and continues, with the publish or perish system. Also a factor: faculty and industry members who enhance their resumes/vitas by sitting on the editorial boards of these commercially published journals. My views are not unique: librarians have delivered blistering criticisms of the whole mess in the library literature, and really the few points of leverage we have in this whole debate are: 1) cancel outrageously priced titles, for which the cost is escalating at around 17%/year and 2) encourage publication in society-sponsored journals, which have more credibilty anyway. The situation has come to such a crisis that many academic libraries have seen the monographs budget dwindle alarmingly (to almost nothing) to accomodate the escalating cost of journal subscriptions. I see that down here! So I cancel titles. You may forward this diatribe as you see fit. Remember, you are the person who once said to not get me started! Phyllis ---------- From: Filewicz, Mark V. To: Vicars, Phyllis Subject: FW: Journal costs Date: Wednesday, January 15, 1997 8:07AM Phyllis, The subject of journal costs, electonic publishing and the affect on librarians is being discussed in open forum on paleonet (a paleo newsgroup on the internet that we paleotypes subscribe to). Thought you might be interested. Mark ---------- From: paleonet To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: Journal costs Date: Wednesday, January 15, 1997 12:16AM ---------- From: paleonet To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: Journal costs Date: Wednesday, January 15, 1997 12:16AM The answer is simple, but the implications of the "simple" answer are much less-so. In order to reduce the costs of scientific journals the publishers (be they societies or commercial publishers) need to be able to reduce the costs of producing the journal. Since (in all cases) the authors and (in most cases) the editors, reviewers, etc. work for free you can't save much money there. That leaves the printers. The price increases for most journals published by scientific societies are, for the most part, a direct reflection of increases in the printer's costs. But you don't want quality to suffer so there's not much that can be saved there either. That would seem to suggest that the best way to get really big savings is to do away with printing all together and move toward electronic publishing. But what about the costs (to libraries) associated with that? Several current studies have suggested that the price tag associated with the move to electronic journals will be higher (in terms of the need for the input of technology into libraries) than the price of sticking with print journals. The move to electronic publishing will happen (is already happening), but I fear that our friends the librarians will - once again - find themselves caught in the middle. In strongly archive-oriented fields like paleontology, this is going to be a big problem. Norm MacLeod >Hello, > > I understand that some of you out there in paleoland are involved >with the publication of academic journals. I am a paleontology grad who >is involved in our student government here at Carleton, and the >acquisition of scientific journals (or the lack thereof) by our library is >a hot issue these days. > Government cutbacks notwithstanding, the library informs us that >journal prices have been skyrocketing, especially in the sciences and >engineering disciplines. As a result, our library, and others around the >world, have been cancelling subscriptions which concerns those researchers >and students who depend on current published research. > It would seem, from a strictly business point of view, that >publishers would want to stem this tide of subscription cancellations. >There is a snowball effect happening: the more subscriptions that are >cancelled, the higher the price needs to be raised to recoup lost revenue. >As prices increase, more subscriptions are cancelled. And so on. Are >there any ideas on how to reverse this trend? > > >/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ > Andrew Dalby > Dept. of Earth Sciences > Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre Carleton University > Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (613) 520-2600 X1851 > > adalby@ccs.carleton.ca > http://www.carleton.ca/~adalby/ > >"Everyone is entitled to an INFORMED opinion". -Harlan Ellison >\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ > ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Norman MacLeod Micropalaeontological Research N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (E-mail) Address: Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD Office Phone: 0171-938-9006 Dept. FAX: 0171-938-9277 E-mail: N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------
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