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