-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Scholarly Publishing Principles -- Dan Lester
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 15:49:55 -0500
From: "Skwor, Jeanette" <skworj@UWGB.EDU>

***Snipped from the post which follows:

> > I find it difficult to explain five- and six-figure journal
> > subscription prices to parents and students who are piling up large
> > debts to pay tuition.
>
> I've not seen any six figure prices yet

***According to an article in the June issue of _College & Research
Libraries News_, the _Journal of Comparative Neurology_ went from $1920
in
1985 to a current $15,000.  The article, which may be of interest to
participants in this discussion, is "Create Change" by Ray English and
Larry
Hardesty, p. 515.

Jeanette L. Skwor                       Email:skworj@uwgb.edu
Serials Dept., Cofrin Library           Phone: (920)465-2670
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay       Fax: (920)465-2783
Green Bay, WI  54311-7001

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen D. Clark [mailto:sdclar@mail.wm.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 7:21 AM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: Re: Scholarly Publishing Principles -- Dan Lester
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Scholarly Publishing Principles -- Fred Jenkins
> Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 13:59:27 -0600
> From: Dan Lester <dan@riverofdata.com>
> Reply-To: Dan Lester <dan@riverofdata.com>
> Organization: RiverOfData.com
>
>
> Monday, June 12, 2000, 1:38:46 PM, you wrote:
>
>
> > Higher administrations have numerous
> > competing demands for funds aside from research support,
> many of which are
> > mandated  by government agencies or the people who pay
> tuition and taxes to
> > support  higher education.  Most people outside of higher education
> > (at least in my experience) are much more concerned with the quality
> > and affordability of undergraduate education; they tend to
> regard research
> > as secondary unless they see it leading directly to
> economic development in
> > their region.
>
> This is absolutely correct.  Talk to the average taxpayer, and s/he
> will tell you that research is fine for Harvard or Stanford, but that
> it is of no importance to the typical state college or university
> unless they can see a dollar return, and see it NOW.  Look at the
> Golden Fleece Awards that some senator gives out all the time.
> They're generally for some federally funded research at a university,
> and for something valid, but not of value to Joe Citizen, like "Study
> of the Reproductive Habits of the Spiral Purple Snail in the Podunk
> River near Nowhere, Nebraska."  That would be a perfectly good
> research topic, and might even lead to something of economic value
> someday.  However, when you try to explain to Mary Public that
> spending a hundred grand on it is a good thing, you'll hear about all
> the other things that money could better be spent on.
>
> > If colleges and universities were to follow Mr. Henderson's
> admonitions, I
> > suspect we would soon be called to account by those who
> ultimately pay
> > the bills.
>
> We all are now, of course, and would be even more under that scenario.
>
> > I find it difficult to explain five- and six-figure journal
> > subscription prices to parents and students who are piling up large
> > debts to pay tuition.
>
> I've not seen any six figure prices yet, but it wouldn't surprise me
> if they were to come along.  It is bad enough trying to explain the
> cost of journals to faculty.  The line I regularly use with the
> Chemistry and Physics faculties I work with is "Well, the ACS [or AIP,
> etc.] is YOUR professional society, and not mine, so why not take it
> up with them at your next annual conference."  Of course these society
> publishers have become such entrenched bureaucracies with their own
> goals to survive and expand, that the society members have almost no
> real input to the business operations.
>
> I'm not suggesting that society publishers are bad, just that they
> should not really be separated from the mass of commercial publishers.
>
> dan
>
>
> --
> Dan Lester  dan@RiverOfData.com
> 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716-7115 USA
> www.riverofdata.com  www.postcard.org  www.gailndan.com
>