PAMnet News
Debra Bailey
More threads from the past quarter can be found in the PAMnet Discussion Archive at http://listserv.nd.edu/archives/pamnet.html.
Four IOP Journals move to Taylor & Francis
Problem of Differential Pricing
Dutch Financial Times article about Swets
Open Access discussions
Open Acess Librarianship Journals
dbailey@rice.edu
David Stern posted news of changes to the IOP packages. He speculated that the changes might increase costs as these titles move to a commercial publisher. Stern lamented, I am disheartened that newer titles we have altruistically supported are moving away from non-profit publishers. Donna Cromer asked IOP about prices, wondering if Package B would go down without Waves in Random Media. She found out that they are adding the new Journal of Statistical Mechanics to the package. Steve Moss of IOP stated, "Please be assured that IOP will never become a breeding ground for eventual commercial titles." Moss further clarified, "Our primary goal is to publish journals that will benefit the Physics community. To do so effectively, we occasionally need to consolidate our resources to focus on our core strengths." Moss stated that IOP specifically chose Taylor & Francis as the new publisher for the four titles based on their recent experience with them during the transfer of Quantitative Finance. Moss hopes this move will not cause libraries to reconsider IOP package purchases, and is available for further questions.
PAMnet Archive Links
Dana L. Roth posted his appreciation to the IOP for all it has done over the years for SLA-PAM. Roth continued, "The sale of the four titles to T&F, however, reminded me of a tangential issue that has been bothering me for some time. I have spoken about differential journal pricing for several years now and it is not an issue unique to commercial European publishers. For example, the 2004 British Pound price for IOP package Z was GBP25,894 while the US$ price was US$49,798." Roth gave several ways to calculate a reasonable exchange rate and a corresponding reasonable USD. Roth stated, "Comparison of these prices, with the $49,798 charged, suggests that US$ subscribers are paying at least a 15% surcharge over a reasonable exchange rate subscription price. If the IOP is not prepared to reduce the Package Z subscription rate in 2005, would it be too much to expect them to meet us half way and also not increase the US$ subscription rate?" Bernd-Christoph Kemper continued, "What is worse and really unjustified, is ACS' practice to use differential pricing also for electronic surcharges and e-only prices of their journals in North America and abroad, while AIP and APS use the same e-only prices for all regions globally. This clearly shows that differential pricing is involved and not just 'shipping and handling' charges."
PAMnet Archive Links
Dana Roth posted, "Check out the Dutch Financial Times (het Financieele Dagblad) of Monday, 20th September, for an article entitled Swets at brink of ruin after accounting fault. Bob Michaelson posted comments from Arjen Oudheusden, CEO, Swets Information Services, "As a brief comment to the article that appeared in the Dutch press I would like to inform you that Swets is operationally sound and that management is confident that the issues will be resolved at the shareholders meeting this Friday." Roth posted news of the Swets 2003 stockholders meeting. Major points were: Royal Swets & Zeitlinger share capital strengthening by EUR 45 million--the funds will be used to accelerate investments in e-services; and the 2003 annual accounts were approved. Continuing the discussion, Mark Doyle posted, "As you may recall, the main difficulty with RoweCom was that they didn't escrow payments and instead just put the money into their general operating funds. Do those of you who use agents demand that they escrow payments to publishers as a safeguard against bankruptcy?" Roth posted, "Caltech has, for many years, subscribed directly with society publishers (e.g. APS, ACS, AIP, RSC, IOP), which avoids subscription agent service charges." Steve Moss replied, "Hopefully this will turn out positively, but again it reinforces the importance of all of us, collectively, addressing this for the future." Sarah Stevens-Rayburn pitched in that for her small library after the Faxon fiasco "We had really had enough of dealing with both an agent and direct. The bottom line is we did an RFP and have now placed about 95% of our titles with another agent."
Bob Michaelson posted an excerpt from the (July 30, 2004) issue, page A13, of the Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled American and British Lawmakers Endorse Open-Access Publishing by Andrea L. Foster and Lila Guterman. Susan Fingerman posted a link to the article, The devil you don't know: The unexpected future of Open Access publishing by Joseph J. Esposito at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_8/esposito/. Robert Michaelson posted, "Derk Haank, Springer-Verlag, has some hostile things to say about Open Access in an interview with the British publication Information World Review: http://www.iwr.co.uk/IWR/1158226. Haank makes the claim that Springer's Open Choice [in which Springer authors can make a payment of $3,000 per article to allow it to be freely available online] was 'a pragmatic solution that would reveal just how deep the demand for OA publishing is.' The Public Library of Science charges $1,500 per article, and does not require the assigning of copyright, which Haank calls "unsustainable."" Michaelson continues, "According to Library Journal Academic Newswire for Sept. 28, 2004, SPARC's Director, Rick Johnson, replies: 'Perhaps it is unsustainable for Springer, but I'm confident there are others who can do it for less. That's competition.'"
George S. Porter posted links to 13 free or Open Access fulltext journals including,
Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, see http://www.istl.org/, Journal of Electronic Publishing see http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/, and Learned Publishing, see http://www.ingentaselect.com/rpsv/cw/alpsp/09531513/contp1.htm. Joanne Yeomans posted, "The Directory of Open Access Journals http://www.doaj.org/ljbs?cpid=129 lists 31 library titles ...including CERN's own HEP Libraries Webzine, http://library.cern.ch/HEPLW/." Peggy Dominy posted a message from a colleague about, The New Review of Information and Library Research, a biannual, peer-reviewed journal, which publishes articles on contemporary information research and how this is shaping present and future information and library services. In spring 2005, NRIN will publish a special issue on Open Access. The web site of the journal is http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/1361455x.asp
