I notice that Dan's message below prefaces the quoted sections from Sage's
press release with my initials (RA).  I suppose that this is an automatic
feature of his email program, but I want to make it clear, again, that those
quotes are not from me and do not represent my views or opinions.  I passed
along the Sage announcement as a courtesy to Sage and to the list, not as a
statement of my own.

-------------
Rick Anderson
Director of Resource Acquisition
The University Libraries
University of Nevada, Reno      "I'm not against the modern
1664 No. Virginia St.            world.  I just don't think
Reno, NV  89557                  everything's for sale."
PH  (775) 784-6500 x273             -- Elvis Costello
FX  (775) 784-1328
rickand@unr.edu

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Lester [mailto:dan@riverofdata.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 3:50 PM
> To: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum; Rick Anderson
> Cc: Electronic Resources in Libraries
> Subject: Re: Statement from Sage
>
>
>
> Wednesday, July 10, 2002, 3:17:32 PM, you wrote:
>
> RA> Sage Publications would like to clarify our position with
> respect to both
> RA> EBSCO and ProQuest.  We have decided to remove our content from the
> RA> aggregated databases known as EBSCOhost and ProQuest.  This
> decision is
> RA> effective at the end of this year, but EBSCO and ProQuest
> will continue to
> RA> fulfill subscriptions to their conclusion up until the end of
> 2003.   We
> RA> have taken this decision, which we recognize will disappoint
> some in the
> RA> library community, after almost 10 years of experimenting
> with aggregated
> RA> databases.
>
> The key word above is "experimenting", which is exactly what all of
> the publishers and aggregators have been, and are, doing.  As we know,
> the standard model of journal subscription and management that has
> served us for a couple of centuries (we send money, someone sends us a
> journal, whether for personal or library subscriptions) is on the way
> out, like it or not.  Will it be replaced by free journals on the web,
> paid for journals on the web, combinations of print and web, of any
> one of a number of other options.  And, there will be new options
> available in the next few years that we've not even dreamed of yet.
>
> RA> First, the increasing substitution of the databases for actual
> RA> journal subscriptions  jeopardizes the continued viability of
> our journal
> RA> publishing program.  Journals cannot sustain themselves
> without income from
> RA> subscriptions.
>
> This is interesting.  I accept and understand the point they're
> making.  What surprises me is that, after all of the librarians on
> these lists and elsewhere have said that they'd never drop a
> subscription because it is in an aggregated service, there has been an
> impact on their subscriptions.  Are they telling us a story, a good
> excuse?  Have bunches of us been dropping subscriptions without
> admitting it?  Or, perhaps most likely, the professors who had
> individual subscriptions have dropped them due to the availability of
> the content through campus licenses?  Or maybe a combination of all
> three?
>
> RA> Unfortunately, the royalties earned from EBSCOhost and
> RA> ProQuest are not substantial enough to support the cost of
> publishing a
> RA> journal.
>
> And if the royalties were substantial enough, then our database
> subscription rates would go up, and many of us would then be unhappy
> about that.
>
> RA> We would potentially be confronted with ceasing publication of a
> RA> number of titles.  Decreasing the amount of available
> scholarly research
> RA> will not serve the academic community well.
>
> Purest nonsense.  Half of the published "research" is pure crap.  It
> is redundant, trivial, and a host of other adjectives.  That's true in
> library science, in physics, and in all other fields.  Yes, we can
> quibble forever about whether it is half, or 40 percent, or 60
> percent, that could be done without, but having MORE stuff published
> does not mean we've done anything BETTER.  Of course if "serving the
> academic community well" means that we can all have eight articles
> published to help get tenure instead of five, maybe they're right,
> though I still don't consider that anything BETTER.
>
> RA> Second, we believe that our
> RA> current and future electronic publishing plans for Sage journals will
> RA> provide great benefits to the library community, as we will
> describe below.
>
> I'm willing to give them a chance.  After all, I don't have any
> choice, do I?
>
> RA> backward and forward. Each Collection will be hosted on a
> platform enabling
> RA> key word search functionality, browsing functionality, and
> reference and
> RA> citation linking capability. The Collections are designed to
> be dynamic
> RA> research tools for students and faculty members in the social
> sciences.
> RA> Sage currently plans to release new Collections in new
> disciplines each
> RA> year.
>
> This may make business sense, as it is designed to get the students
> and faculty in each of those disciplines locked into using their
> particular subset of literature of their field.  However, it probably
> adds yet one more complication to library instruction, reference work,
> and other activities we deal with, but, hey, we're used to that.
>
> cheers
>
> dan
>
> --
> Dan Lester, Data Wrangler  dan@RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711
> 3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho  83716-7115 USA
> www.riverofdata.com  www.gailndan.com  Stop Global Whining!
>