MISC> ARTICLES: Quotable Comment Regarding the Huge and Growing Cost of Research Journals
- From: Gleason Sackmann <gleason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: NetHappenings <nethappenings@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 09:46:47 -0600
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Net Happenings - From Educational CyberPlayGround
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From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 10:44:23 -0500 (EST)
Library budgets in recent years have been at best staying even and in many
cases declining due to difficult financial times not to mention growing
crises in state government budgets. At the same time the high cost of
research journals has been escalating rapidly, particularly in the
sciences. The end result of these trends is that libraries are making
substantial cuts in their periodical holdings. To make matters worse, at
least one publisher of many high priced journals, makes one contractual
condition for the online use of its database of its full text journals
that libraries not cut any print subscriptions to its print periodical
publications, so those libraries that use this publisher's expensive
publications are forced to make journal cuts from other journal
publishers' offerings.
While there is no easy solution to the range of problems that are creating
this loss of research materials in libraries, the featured quotation below
contains one very interesting and probative avenue to explore in the
realization of making research publication more widely available at much
more acceptable cost:
"Frankly, if the US Government simply dictated that all research resulting
from federal grants had to be freely available to the public who paid for
it would put a big hole in publisher monopolies."
Harvey Brenneise
Michigan Public Health Institute
Quotation Found in the Liblicense-L Discussion Group Archives
<http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0304/msg00001.html>
Those who wish to read more about the relationship between libraries,
journal subscription prices and budgets will find much to read in the
LibLicense-L archives, especially recently. Add to this the Enron of the
library world, the Divine exploitation of its ownership of Rowe.com that
holds the Faxon library journal subscription service and the tremendous
resulting crisis faced by many library Faxon/Rowe.com subscribers that
have been in danger of never receiving many journals that they had paid
subscriptions for and the plot of the reduction of research resources in
libraries thickens.
LibLicense-L Archives
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/
A search of Rowe.com in these archives will produce 120 postings that
cover from before the Divine acquisition of Rowe.com through the present
in which EBSCO has emerged as the buyer of Rowe.com and the Divine filing
for bankruptcy.
Those who would like to read more about the stress on library budgets in
the current publishing and funding environment can consider these choices:
Scholarly journals straining budgets
by Thomas Velardo
FOR THE POST
With scholarly journal prices on the rise, many libraries and educational
institutions are forced to decide what is most essential- and to cut the rest.
<http://132.235.238.184/archives3/nov00/110200/news10.html>
According to the Association of Research Libraries Web site
(http://www.arl.org), serial expenditures, the money spent on scholarly
journals, in ARL libraries rose 170 percent from 1986 to 1999. Ohio
University is a member of the ARL.
By comparison, the Consumer Price Index, a common measure of inflation,
rose 52 percent in the same period. Additionally, ARL libraries have
purchased six percent fewer serials, while paying 207 percent higher per
unit cost for those serials, according to the ARL site.
The problem is particularly acute in science, technology and medicine. In
the OU Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, roughly 90 percent of the
annual acquisition budget is spent on scholarly journals. Because of the
price increases, some of the lesser-used or more expensive journals have
been cut, said Howard Dewald, chair of the department's library.
----------------------
Library's journals come with hefty prices
Skyrocketing price of materials making it tough for research institutions,
like University of Guelph
Thursday June 27, 2002
KERRY THOMPSON
MERCURY STAFF
<http://www.guelphmercury.com/news/news_02062785821.html>
Michael Ridley is the chief librarian at the University of Guelph. He says
over the last 10 years, the library's purchasing power has been cut in half.
University libraries have the odds stacked against them, as row upon row
of expensive journals deplete budgets and leave them with less purchasing power.
Libraries at research institutions, including the University of Guelph,
have been struggling with higher material prices for two decades, and one
of the most prominent problems is the skyrocketing price of prestigious,
high-end journals professors want.
Those journals include titles such as Science, Nature, and Brain Research,
which is published by Elsevier Science in New York, and costs more than
$16,000 US for a one-year subscription.
Elsevier, which publishes more than 1,500 journals, is one of a handful of
scholarly publishing companies that dominate the market, following mergers
and acquisitions throughout the 1990s.
The price of journals increased 226 per cent between 1986 and 2000, while
the cost of monographs (books) increased 66 per cent.
----------------------
Journals and Budgets
[Discussion Group Posting]
<http://hilbert.math.albany.edu:8800/hm/emj/1997/msg00102.html>
(1) HOW TO JUDGE WHETHER THE PRICE OF A PRINT JOURNAL IS FAIR
(2) WHAT EFFECT ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING WILL HAVE ON PRICES
(3) HOW TO RESPOND TO PUBLISHERS SO THEY GET THE MESSAGE
(4) CAVEATS
----------------------
Competition and Cooperation: Libraries and Publishers in the Transition to
Electronic Scholarly Journals
by ANDREW ODLYZKO
Journal of Electronic Publishing
<http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/04-04/odlyzko0404.html>
This paper is one of a collection of essays based on the work of a study
group of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The entire collection
is to be published by Springer under the tentative title "The Transition
from Paper: A Vision of Scientific Communication in 2020," S. Berry and A.
Moffat, eds.
A specter is haunting the publishing industry. It is the specter of
Encyclopaedia Britannica. My first paper on electronic publishing (1995)
cited Encyclopaedia Britannica as an example of a formerly flourishing
business that fell into trouble in just a few years by neglecting
electronic media. Since that time, Encyclopaedia Britannica has collapsed,
and was sold to Jacob Safra, who is investing additional funds to cover
losses and revamp the business (Melcher 1997). The expensive sales force
has been dismissed, and while print versions can still be purchased from
bookstores, the focus is on electronic products. This collapse occurred
even though Encyclopaedia Britannica had more than two centuries of
tradition behind it, and was by far the most scholarly and best known of
the English-language encyclopedias. In the apt words of P.B. Evans
Britannica's downfall is more than a parable about the dangers of
complacency. It demonstrates how quickly and drastically the new economics
of information can change the rules of competition, allowing new players
and substitute products to render obsolete such traditional sources of
competitive advantage as a sales force, a supreme brand, and even the
world's best content.
----------------------
Policy statement by academic libraries on the pricing of scholarly journals
<http://cf.uba.uva.nl/en/projects/journals-pricing-ukb/policy.html>
--SPARC/ACRL session gives librarians an economics lesson on serials
--Economics lesson leads to inspiration: is a site license boycott by
libraries possible?
<http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/
0302/msg00017.html>
----------------------
Library Research Collections and
Web Based Electronic Journal and Electronic Book
<http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/dresources3.html>
College and university libraries are greatly increasing their
collections of online electronic full text materials as new companies and
new services from established businesses provide an ever expanding array
of full text materials on the internet for subsription use. For a
substantial fee, libraries can make large groups of publications, book and
journal, available to the clientelle of those libraries through contracts
that lease the material to the purchasing library. Users are often able to
use the material through IP recognition when they are on internet access
connections provided by the college that they attend or work for.
----------------------
Electronic Learning:
The End Product of Classroom Technology: Some Resources
<http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Internet/DISTANCE%20LEARNING/electronicdd.html>
----------------------
There are quite a few issues that will determine how feasible research
will continue to be in the information marketplace. Educators need to be
aware of these issues in order to play a proactive role towards enabling
the best possible outcome of the processes in motion for the research
needs of students and scholars.
Full Text of the Articles May Be Read at the URLs Above.
Sincerely,
David Dillard Research Librarian
david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ECP RingLeader
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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