Pricing Newsletter Ceases Publication Marcia Tuttle 25 Jan 2002 19:50 UTC
It is with very mixed feelings that I send this formal announcement that the Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues ceased publication with issue number 257 on August 12, 2001. From its beginning on February 27, 1989 (as an ALA Resources and Technical Services Division publication) through the final issue, the pricing newsletter has been a delight for me, the most fun I ever had as a librarian. But times have changed. The newsletter was one of the earliest -- if not THE earliest -- library-related electronic publications. In 1989, BITNET, Datalinx and ALANET were state-of-the-art systems, and the pricing newsletter published through them all. The World Wide Web made our job much easier and enabled us to provide an archive of all the issues. Four and a half years ago I retired as a serials librarian, and three years ago I taught my last serials librarianship course. That's a long time to be away from the day-to-day serials world. Jim Mouw has been wonderful as a permanent "guest editor," but he is a very busy man, and the pricing newsletter is very much my baby. No one else can be expected to be as emotionally involved as I have been! Jim, the editorial board, and I have contemplated the advisability of trying to continue the newsletter, even of selling it to a commercial publisher. However, it seems that the best course of action is to cease publication. As technology matured, so did the means of distributing news about serial pricing; we were not the only game in town. Also, the pricing issue itself evolved from simply concern about subscription rates to include other matters such as licensing of online journals. As people's interests moved from issues related directly to pricing, new forums developed to address those issues. Many of these new forums employ listserv technology, allowing for immediate posting and feedback. We considered moving the newsletter to this technology, but it became apparent that adequate channels already existed, and we decided not to reinvent the wheel. The time for a periodic newsletter addressing issues of immediate concern has passed. My sincere thanks to all the editorial board members: Deana Astle, Mary Beth Clack, Jerry Curtis, Chuck Hamaker, and Bob Houbeck -- the original members; and Keith Courtney, Fred Friend, Birdie MacLennan, Mike Markwith, Jim Mouw, David Stern, Heather Steele, and Scott Wicks -- the second generation of board members. Special thanks go to those who have helped me technically at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, particularly Paul Jones and David Romani. And also to two scholars in France who have provided -- and will continue to provide -- a searchable Web site for the newsletter archive: Laurent Guillope at Nantes and Monique Marchand at Grenoble. The address for that searchable site is: http://www-mathdoc.ujf-grenoble.fr/NSPI/NSPI.html. The UNC-CH library server will also continue to provide an archive of the newsletter at http://www.lib.unc.edu/prices/. Equally sincere and special thanks go to all of you who have read the pricing newsletter, who have contributed to the topic, and who have encouraged, claimed, berated, and generally made the newsletter the success it has been for so many years. I'll miss you! Marcia Tuttle, Editor and Publisher tuttle@email.unc.edu