Re: book prices

On Thu, 3 Sep 1998, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> Even on a constant dollar basis, academic research doubled in the
> last 15 years in the U.S. It seems that managers of the university
> "industry" are quite willing to encourage sponsored research with
> its 56% overhead bonus that pretends to address library costs while
> viewing its major ingredient -- knowledge -- as a cost to be contained.
>
> IMHO, the sponsors of research are not getting their money's worth as
> I have discussed at length in the current issue of SOCIETY.

I will certainly read Albert Henderson's article in _Society_ (UofGuelph subscribes to it :-), but in the meantime, I can agree with him about the sharp increases in volume of research and concomitant value to the universities. At the same time, it is also clear that the amount of research together with pressures for faculty publications and citations as part of the "publish or perish" syndrome have been a principle cause of an ever-increasing number of journals "births" -- far more than the number of "deaths". For example, in *each* of the past three years, about 20 new mathematics journals have been launched - 1/3 only in paper format, 1/3 exclusively in electronic format, and 1/3 in both (Silvio Levy, "Remarks on math journals and libraries", in Newsletter on Serial Pricing Issues, No.202, March 12, 1998). There are a few moves afoot to try and reduce the impact of volume of publications, but these are in teething stages.

At the same time, studies on the impact of journal costs have become more sophisticated. To continue the mathematics example, Dr. Rob Kirby (Dept. Mathematics, U-Cal-Berkelely) has made extensive examinations of prices charged by various publishers of mathematics journals on a per page basis. He notes that the "three most prestigious" journals, all published by an academic or learned society press cost between $0.13 and $0.15 per page, whereas the journals published by commercial publishers run between $0.47 and $1.35 per page. He also comments on the costs involved and how much work (and costs) are actually looked after by the authors (Rob Kirby, "Kirby letter to Elsevier officers", in Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues, No.199, January 21, 1998).

Cheers,

Bernard Katz, Head, Special Collections and Library Development McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph, Guelph ON Canada N1G 2W1

   and Chair, Ontario Library Association Copyright Action Committee bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca // (519) 824-4120 X2089 // FAX: (519) 824-6931 Received on Wed Sep 09 1998 - 23:40:05 GMT