LBO'ers,
Below is a department message I picked up this morning when I logged into an old e-mail account for the lab I worked in. It is a plant cell biology lab. The message is from the Bio Science Librarian who is struggling to keep the library journal subscriptions down to those journals that are most often used and cited by Bioscience department faculty and students.
Hopefully you will find it interesting.
Chuck Grimes
----- Forwarded message from Beth Weil -----
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:51:37 -0800 To: bweil at library.berkeley.edu From: Beth Weil <bweil at library.berkeley.edu> Subject: Journal Cost Info-- & Endnote Class on Tuesday..
Below are announcements of pieces of information concerning journal prices which you may find of interest.
There is an Endnote Class on Tuesday at 10 am. I've included the training schedule below.
Cornell Study on Journal Prices Released
A faculty task force from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Division of Biological Sciences at Cornell has just released the results of a study of journal prices for 312 core agricultural and biological titles. The study reports that between 1988 and 1994 the prices of agricultural journals, on a price-per-page basis, increased 64.7% for all titles, with commercial publishers at a high of 77.8% and society and association publications at a low of 33.8%. The full report with tables may be found on-line at
<http://adam.mannlib.cornell.edu/jps/jps.htm>.
One of the recommendations from this report is..
Academics including researchers must be aware of the implications of their publishing patterns and the costs to institutions and their readers. These include the possibility of not supporting journals (either by submission of manuscripts or provision of editorial services) which have excessive costs, journals which take copyright unto themselves for profit, and journals which restrict access to information by high use or subscription costs.
Corporate Profile of Reed Elsevier Published
An extensive profile of Reed Elsevier was included in the January 4, 1999 of the London Times (p. 44). The article describes the disappointing performance of Reed Elsevier in 1998, but suggests the core businesses remain strong: "The company's scientific division had revenues of 571 million pounds and operating profits of 230 million pounds in 1997 -- a 40 per margin and a 66 per cent return on capital invested. Despite such attractive margins, it will be very difficult for competitors to challenge the company's market-leading journals in the physical, life and social sciences - above all because of the importance to scientists of peer review and ensuring that their papers appear in the right journals." The article further notes: "tens of millions of pounds have been spent on moving to electronic delivery systems," this investment was "vital to protect these high margins."
Beth Weil Head Librarian Marian Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library
----- End of forwarded message from Beth Weil -----