2 messages, 157 lines:

(1)--------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 17 May 2000 09:59:07 -0400
From:         Albert Henderson <NobleStation@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject:      Re: Harnad vs. Henderson: A view from the bleachers (2 messages)

on  16 May 2000 Kathleen  Thorne <kathleen@sjsu.edu> wrote:

>  As for profits, well, maybe the Chancellor's Office creams off some, I
> don't know, but at the campus level we certainly don't have any extra
> funds.  Mr. Henderson, you need to learn the realities of what the average
> university library faces.

I am trying to help libraries, librarians, and library users
with constructive criticism. Please don't take it personally.

After 40 years in learned publishing, I have come to the
conclusion that the average university library has not been
handling the competition for financial resources very well.
The average library now shares half of what it had in the
1960s. The average library collection performs more
poorly than ever. The average library user is undermined.

Universities don't have "extra" funds because administration
"says so."  Meanwhile, they show unspent  revenues in the
billions of dollars to the government, as required by law.
Having reported $500 million profit to the IRS two years in a
row, one of these predators cried to the librarian, "we had to
borrow to get by this year."  Remember Stanford caught
mis-posting research overhead to nonresearch accounts
while cancelling science journals because there was "no
money." You can believe administrators if you wish to.  I
would rather stick to the facts.

Albert Henderson
Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
<70244.1532@compuserve.com>

(2)------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 17 May 2000 09:59:03 -0400
From:         Albert Henderson <NobleStation@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject:      Harnad vs. Henderson: A view from the bleachers

on Tue, 16 May 2000 Steve Black <blacks@MAIL.STROSE.EDU> wrote:

> I'm a librarian at a private, independent liberal arts college with
> roughly 4000 FTE.  Our patrons are primarily students, not research
> scientists.  We are price and product takers.  That means we have to live
> with what is available, and we have very, very little voice in pricing
> decisions or which serials are available to us in what format.
>
> From my perspective on the periphery, Mr. Harnad and Mr. Henderson each
> miss or choose to gloss over key points.

[snip]

> Mr. Henderson consistently lays the blame for the serials crisis at the
> feet of university administrators, but I think this misses most of the
> true problem, for two reasons.
>
> First, even assuming that everything Mr. Henderson says about research
> university spending is true, that says nothing about the spending at the
> College of Saint Rose and the thousands of institutions like us.  The 120
> or so ARL libraries could buy every single journal published, but that
> wouldn't sell enough subscriptions to keep many publishers alive.  I would
> think that publishers have to sell many subscriptions to smaller
> institutions to make ends meet.  Our college gets by, but we aren't
> salting away profits by starving the library (or by any other means).

Good question.

Government statistics also demonstrate that total higher
education share of spending on libraries (as a percent of
revenues) dropped by 1/3 while profits rose by 1/2.
between 1976 and 1996.

In 1987, total spending on libraries dropped $110 million
dollars, undermining sales of all academic publishers as
well as the career situations of all academic librarians.
There was _no_financial_need_ to cut libraries, inasmuch
as total profits increased $114 million that year. The
cut did set up the "library crisis" media blitz that
followed two years later.

> Second, there are too many instances of sharp price increases by
> commercial publishers to blame it on ARL library non-spending.  Any one of
> us could point to a journal that doubled, tripled, or quadrupled in price
> when it went from a society or small independent publisher to a commercial
> publisher.  For instance, the BI journal Research Strategies was published
> regularly by Mountainside Publishing for $34 in 1997.  It is now in the
> hands of JAI/Elsevier, and for 2000 it costs $125 for a journal with no
> more articles and irregular publication.  And I would be curious to see
> any reasoned argument that the current Research Strategies has
> higher-quality content than it had in the past.

You might take a moment and consider that these former
publishers had underpriced themselves in vain attempts
to win popularity and rescue falling sales. The trouble
with underpricing is that it only results in the shock
of catching up. Read the testimony of Harry Lustig, former
treasurer of APS (1985-1996) on direct examination by Atty
Lupert June 10, 1997:
                                                                271

   1         A.    The biggest problem was my being allowed to make

   2    the necessary increases in prices.

   3         Q.    Right.  But let's talk about it in terms of what

   4    those actual price increases were.

   5               Am I not correct that those price increases in

   6    the 1980s period were large?

   7         A.    Yes.  They had reached about 15 percent per year.

   8         Q.    And, indeed, do you recall that in 1987/88, APS

   9    across the board had to increase its prices by 26.9 percent?

  10         A.    That was a very unfortunate and unusual

  11    happening.  Because of illness in the family I was unable to

  12    attend the council the year before so they did not follow my

  13    recommendation for the 15 percent price increases then but

  14    made a much lower one, so, yes, we had to compensate that

  15    one the next year for the losses.

  16         Q.    Let me, so that we have the facts straight:  In

  17    1986-'87, the price increase was 12 percent and in '87-'88,

  18    it was 26.9 percent?

  19         A.    Yes.

Read the rest of the testimony and it should become clear that
the infamouse Barschall attacks on other publishers were meant
to call attention away from this disaster.

Thanks for your interest.

Best wishes,

Albert Henderson
Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
<70244.1532@compuserve.com>