Serials prices: Column 9

October Ivins, Column Editor S e r i a l s

SERI S CES: COLUMN 9

October Iviaz

INTRODUCTION

This is a summer vacation edition of the column, comprised entirely of reports on the serials pricing aspects of three conferences held in June. With many people attending meetings and on vacation, the ALA reports are particularly brief. On a personal note, between participating in these meetings, handling end- of-the-fiscal-year financial arrangements, recruiting an assistant, and moving into a new house, I haven't had time to include annotations. In fact, the pressure of meeting four deadlines a year has led me to decide (at the suggestion of Cindy Hepfer, SR editor, and Ken Wachsberger, SR managing editor) to find a co-editor to alternate columns; each of us would write two columns per year. Please call me or send an email note if you are interested or would like more information about what is involved.

Ivins is head of Serials Services at Louisiana :State University Libraries, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Acknowledgments: The editor gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the following individuals: Corrie Marsh, George Washington University; Richard Ring, University of Kansas; and Peter Young, The Faxon Institute (through July 1990; in August 1990, the National Commission for Library and Information Science).

NORTH AMERICAN SERIALS INTEREST GROUP 5TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

2-5 JUNE ~ 9 9 0 ST. CATHARINE~S, ONTARIO

This year's conference attracted a record attendance of 450, as librarians, vendors, publishers, binders, and representatives from other parts of the serials community met to discuss common concerns. Serials pricing was again a major theme, as five general

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sessions and a panel addressed topics related to pricing. Keynote speaker Lucretia McClure, director of the medical library at the University of Rochester and president elect of the Medical Library Association, suggested two courses of action for serials managers: to become more selective and more quality oriented in terms of purchasing journals, and to become more interactive--to talk with our administrators and researchers about these concerns. We should take this as an opportunity to show the library's value to the institution. She also supported the recent identification that scientists as the producers of research are in a position to control publication. She concluded by advocating that, in addition to the current activities already suggested, we also educate ourselves and our colleagues to work for change over the long range.

Gayle Garlock, University of Toronto, was unable to attend so his paper, "The Crisis of Rising Serials Prices in a Canadian Context," was read by Susan Collins, University of New Brunswick. According to Garlock, exchange rates are a greater problem in Canada than in the United States. Canadian libraries have made three types of responses to the pricing crisis: to attempt to negotiate prices with vendors and publishers; to protect acquisitions budgets; and to support cooperative efforts. Becky Rogers and Patricia Greig, University of Western Ontario, described a study that attempted to replicate the Library Journal periodicals price index for a Canadian academic library. The goal was to determine whether comparable results can be achieved and to explore reasons for similarities and dissimilarities. Results of the study were not clear, but seemed to indicate that a separate index based on Canadian prices is needed.

Brian Scanlan, Elsevier, who was re-elected to the NASIG Board this spring, moderated a panel of three editors and scientists and one librarian on the peer review process. Bruce Dancik, chair, Department of Forestry, University of Alberta, reviewed the charges made against peer review. Of these, the most serious is that it screens out new and innovative science. On the positive side, if the editor takes his or her responsi- bility seriously and effectively screens to "remove wheat from the chaff" a valuable service is provided. Ann Weller, Library of the Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, reported on a survey she conducted of the peer review practices of two groups of medical journals. Titles in group 1 were clinically oriented, well-known journals, while those in group 2 were interdisciplinary or specialized journals. "Group 1 made less use of editorial peer review than group 2 by relying on the editorial staff at several important decision points," she said.

Lewis Gidez, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, reported on the results of

a survey of a sample of members. He stated that editorial peer review is certainly fundamental to the quality and financial success of a journal, but noted that many studies are narrowly focused and don't make this clear. His study surveyed the amount of time it takes to complete a review, and compared the actual and perceived turnaround time required. Naturally, respondents reported that they return reviews faster but that their own manuscripts are held longer than the editor's figures indicate. Bruce Squires, Canadian Medical Journal, had a different perspective. As the editor of a general medical journal, he believes that reviewers in many specialties are essential. He rates reviewers in categories like timeliness and fullness of comments and drops reviewers who do not perform adequately.

Kenneth Marks, now at East Carolina University (NC), and Steve Nielsen, Utah State University, presented "A Longitudinal Study of Journal Prices in a Research Library," which they conducted at Utah State. As non-serials librarians, they began by announc- ing the new respect they gained for serials librarians and "their largely unsung efforts" during the study. A random sample of titles resulted in 40 percent published by commercial publishers and 60 percent by government, society, and academic publishers. Data were collected on the number of articles, advertising, page charges, and many other variables. The average price per page for each title was calculated. The results supported the ARL study, showing that the prices charged by some commercial publishers were not accounted for by exchange rates or other variables. Marks and Nielsen concluded with some recommendations for librarians: we must negotiate with publishers whose prices are out of line; improve our communication with faculty; and change the perceptionthat library subscriptions are impervious to price increases. They also suggested that libraries construct their own price means and standard deviations and plot individual titles against the results to identify cancellation candidates.

The final session on pricing was "A Cost-per-use Method for Weeding a Journal Collection: High Priced Commercial STM Journals Are Not Exempt" by Dorothy Milne and Bill Tiffany, Memorial University of Newfoundland. As its abstract states: "This study shows that it is possible to identify and cancel cost- ineffective STM journals, even major titles from prestige commercial Europublishers. The cost-per-use of each journal was estimated and, if it exceeded the cost of an interlibrary loan, the journal was cancelled. Many mainstream STM journals deemed to be essential by faculty members received zero use over the course of the year, and many others were cancelled because their cost-per-use ratio was too high." This presentation

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provided a valuable technique for making informed cancellation decisions and was very well received.

In addition to the general sessions, 18 workshops were offered. Those that addressed serials pricing concerns were "Subscriptions In, Subscriptions Out: Serials Management with Microcomputers," "Planning, Conducting and Analyzing Serials Vendor Performance Studies," "The Results of the Inclusion of Costs in a Collection Development Allocation Formula," and "Current Issues in Collection Development." Nine informal discussion groups were held, including two on price-related topics: "East European Update: Publishing and Distribution" and "Library/Pub- lisher/Vendor: Order and Payment Arrangements."

THE SOCIETY FOR SCHOLARLY PUBLISIHNG 12TH ANNUAL MEETING

FACING FORWARD: MEETING CHALLENGES NEW AND OLD 5-8 JUNE 1990

SAN FRANCISCO

In many ways, the SSP is NASIG's counterpart. It is the Society FOR Scholarly PublishiNG, not OF scholarlypublishERS. Most members areprofessionals involved in all aspects of book and journal publishing, representing both commercial and non-profitpublishers of all sizes. Perhaps 15 percent of the membership are librarians, scholars, vendors, and others interested in scholarly publishing. Attendance at this meeting was more than 250 people; less than last year's, but the highest ever for one held on the West Coast. The well- planned program focused on several topics of interest to publishers and librarians, including some relevant to the ongoing dialogue concerning serials prices.

In a session entitled "Scholarly Publishing in the 1990s: Challenges and Opportunities," Steven Piersanti, Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers, opened with a controver- sial observation about the blurring of distinctions between scholarly, trade, and other types of publishing and suggested that most scholarly publishing as it is presently practiced is really vanity publishing. He suggested publishers focus their energies on building strong markets and marketing networks rather than expecting a few successful books to carry other less successful ones. Later in the same session, Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University, got the audience's attention by describing how his job now is to decide what NOT to buy as increasing prices and a static budget have reduced book purchases by two-thirds.

He used ARL and local statistics to demonstrate that book prices have increased at the same rate as serial prices. Hamaker explained that university and

government administrators are now interested in finding alternatives to traditional publishing. Concluding the session, Robert Campbell, Blackwell Scientific Publish- ing, outlined trends in journal publishing showing that the introduction of new titles peaked in 1974 and has declined so that cessations and mergers now balance new launches. He also discussed use to date of the ADONIS project (in which recent years of biomedical journals are made available in electronic format). Browsing is still of great importance to researchers, which supports the need for traditional publishing.

A concurrent session on "Marketing in the Next Decade - Maximizing the 'Bang for the Buck'" was less satisfactory. Two publishers gave talks on the use of direct mail and sales representatives, while Michael Keller, Yale, explained how librarians really make purchasing decisions. It seems publishers will continue to use their traditional techniques regardless of what librarians report as useful.

In "Making the Decision to Publish," Virginia Martin, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., presented "Starting or Ending a Journal," with an emphasis on failures. She suggested careful pre-!aunch planning that includes an ongoing evaluation of performance and built-in benchmarks. If a journal is in trouble and corrective measures are not successful, she suggests getting one's emotions out of the way and finding the best way to end publishing. Alternatives include selling the journal to another publisher; ceasing the journal but selling its subscriber list; or giving the journal to the society it represents as a goodwill gesture. The costs of closing a journal include damage to the firm's reputation, subscriber liability, and perhaps returning advertising revenues. Termination of the journal's staff is particularly difficult, and customer service will have to be provided as claims will continue for years after cessa- tion.

Representatives of three different types of publishers addressed "Association Publications - What's the Best Way to Publish Them?" Bob Shirrell, University of Chicago Press, outlined the various services a publisher can provide and the benefits that can be gained. He noted that changing from self-publishing to a non-profit or commercial publisher almost always generates a significant increase in cost, so either the subscriptionprice or sales must increase. After pointing out the differences in profits expected by commercial and non-profit firms, Shirrell concluded that very small and very big societies should self-publish. (The small can do so economically; the large can afford a paid staff and get exactly what they want.)

Michael Boswood, Elsevier, pointed out that each society makes a different arrangement, but some generalization is possible. Of the many advantages offered by commercial publishers, most notable are

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their interest in starting new journals, a more international, less national, or regional focus, and the for- profit orientation that translates into "a way of working that is fast in decision making." He noted that in a tight market, societies are the market. Boswood made several observations about future relationships of societies and commercial presses: changes will produce a need for stablerelationships; competitionfrom scholarlypresses will increase; and an emphasis on finance will continue.

The final speaker was Judy Holoviak, American Geophysical Union, whose society has successfully self- published for more than 70 years. Benefits include the "almost indestructible editorial control," greater member commitment, and financial advantages. She pointed out the variety of arrangements available to help societies retain editorial roles while contracting out many aspects of production.

In "Europe in 1992 - Implications for the Global Scholarly Publishing Community," two speakers focused on the impact of changes in Eastern Europe as well as the common currency and elimination of trade barriers planned for 1992. Jolanda von Hagen, Springer-Verlag, speculated that European scientific foundations might supplant existing national and regional societies. Such associations might choose to self-publish. She noted that the talk about consolidating scholarly communication in the United States has implications for Eastern Europe. That system is archaic and must be revamped; although the printed word will be important in the short term, the widespread use of English makes an international scholarly electronic network a possibilityby the year 2000. Edwin Shelock, Association of Learned Societies, concurred in many respects. He characterized Eastern Europe as having an insatiable market for information, and presently representing "rich pickings" for publishers. He suggested that we need to help Eastern European scientists learn the ethos of professional societies.

The last formal session was "Intellectual Property Rights- A Nineteenth Century Concept in a Twenty- first Century Environment." Peter Young, the Faxon Institute, organized, introduced, and moderated the session. He also summarized the remarks of the first four speakers, which are included here.

Introduction

Intellectual property rights in the electronic age involve a series of complex policy issues and is of basic concern to the scholarly publishing community. The panel speakers demonstrated that there is little agree- ment about what changes are needed to shape knowledge ownership structures in the future.

The session outlined the intellectual property issues confrontingthe scholarly publishing community in the

next decade. The purpose of the session was to create a conceptual framework for identifying, defining, and solving problems. It was pointed out that intellectual property decisions made in the 1990s will shape scholarly communication for the twenty-first century.

Why this topic?

Why is a panel on intellectual property rights appropriate for this Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) meeting? Or alternately, Why should scholarly publishers be concerned about copyright in the future?

Young described his work with Dr. Richard Rowe, president of Faxon Company, in developing the SSP Top Management Roundtable program for the Novem- ber 1989 meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. The topic selected was "Knowledge for Sale: The Future of Intellectual Property." While related to copyright and intellectual property rights, this topic exposed tensions related to basic cultural values and social assumptions. The topic sparked intense interaction among participants. A videotape of the session "Intel- lectual Property on Trial" with NPR's Daniel Schorr is available from the American Library Association. "Knowledge for Sale" exposed the tensions underlying today's complex knowledge-ownership structure.

The roundtable identified several forces of change that challenge our basic assumptions about knowledge property ownership and scholarly publishing. High-speed networks, increasing volume of scientific and scholarly research, calls for faster release of research findings, and demand for wider access to learned information call for examination of our current intellectual property ownership structures if we are to realize the potential of electronic technology for greatly enhancing knowledge creation, production, distribution, and access.

Young pointed out that many of the session titles atthe SSP meeting have an either/or flavor--"Scholarly Publishing in the 1990s: Challenges and Opportunities," "Potentials and Pitfalls for the Scholarly Publisher," and "Promise and Perils of the Electronic Journal." These program titles reflect the changing trends that are forcing a transition to new paradigms of electronic publishing, electronic libraries, and electronic knowledge.

In introducing the session topic, Young identified four intellectual property ownership topics that the scholarly publishing community will confront in the 1990s:

1. Changing demand for scholarly publications: The intense demand for access that is characteristic

of increasing demand for scholarly publications in general was illustrated by the Faxon Company's recent

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experience with the "Glosnost Express" project through which 200 copies of 16 U.S. journal titles were sold out in minutes at a Moscow State University newsstand. In addition, the pre-publication release of decisive clinical trial results by federal health officials long before the results appear in the traditional medical journal literature raises questions about the efficiency of the existing peer review and publication process for printed scholarly journal articles. In general, traditional methods for dissemination of information are increasingly challenged by scholars and researchers, as well as readers, who demand faster, more efficient alternatives for accessing and delivering information.

2. The implications ofnationalhigh-speedcomputer networks for scholarly publishing:

Reference was made to a recent article in the New York Times (8 June 1990) relating to a group of private companies, universities, research laboratories, and government agencies planning to develop an advanced computer network in which data would be transmitted at speeds 700 times faster than possible now. If the 1970s and 1980s were decades of information system development, then the 1990s will likely be dominated by issues related to networks, where separate systems are linked and interconnected to broaden the potential for increased knowledge dissemination and access. These networks raise questions related to the ownership of intellectual property. These questions seek to dis cover the balance between ownership, infringement, enforcement, and copying on the one hand, and access, collaborative communication, open system interactivity, and shared or distributed knowledge interconnection on the other hand.

3. The issues of rights and permissions: Inefficiencies are common in the current rights

and permissions climate. Long delays create calls for reform and standardization, especially from those involved with supporting graduate-level research. The frequency with which a reader or patron will need to access an electronic journal article in an electronic environment will determine what charges and payments are appropriate to that access and use. Questions about what system or organization will maintain ownership rights, register permissions, and transfer payments in the electronic network are fundamental to the future functioning of the electronic publishing paradigm.

4. The value, ownership, and exchange of knowledge:

Knowledge is sometimes referred to as a pure private good that is controllable in the competitive market economy. At other times, however, knowledge is characterized as a public good. What controls are

required to assure optimal social functioning of knowledge in the age of electronic network communications? Questions of this sort are as fundamental as the Soviets' recent experience with property ownership. They reveal basic social values that condition our behavior. The Soviets are struggling to develop the ideological basis for a market economy. Similarly, our systems for intellectual property ownership are being challenged by technological innovations. Just as scholarly print publishing has a distinctive culture reflecting values that are different from the values inherent in other media and communications industries, so electronic knowledge publication and communication will generate a new culture that blends the old with the new. A multidimensional transition is required to move toward the electronic publishing age. This requires the recon- struction of group commitments among the community of scholars, publishers, and librarians who are part of the knowledge process. Only through a community effort can we arrive at a shared vision of the electronic scholarly communication process of the future.

"Intellectual Property Rights in the 21st Century," by Chris A. Meyer

Chris Meyer is an associate in the Washington, DC, office of the law firm of Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn. His firm represents the American Association ofPublishers, as well as numerous publishers. Meyer explored the copyright law as the legal context for balancing economic incentives related to intellectual property in the future. In his view, the copyright issue does not stand in the way of the National Research and Education Network (NREN). Rather, NREN presents an opportunity for sharing information in a more efficient fashion.

Copyright as an historical artifact is responsible for universal education. In the future, copyright provides an effective social tool for both print on paper, as well as the electronic uploading of programs and databases via satellites. Ownership has been settled in today's online information flow environment on the principle that payment is made for access. Indeed, this simple principle provides the best basis for future structures. Arguments that represent information ownership as a special class of property should be guarded against, just as should arguments that the twenty-first century will be any different from the thirteenth or fifteenth century.

Property is defined according to arrangements that are socially generated. Since 1790, governments have decided that intellectual works are property that admit of ownership. Similarly, certain societies hold people as property, especially women and children. The notion that developments in technology will overtake copyright

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are like the arguments a century ago that predicted that photography would destroy concepts of copyright. Chief Justice Holmes' decisions on that issue demonstrated that copyright can adapt to changes in the technical environment.

One criticism of copyright, that copyright protec- tion for computer software somehow impedes the broadest possible use, is often compared with the idea of a shared "commons" in which property is not privately owned, but commonly shared for mutual benefit. Somehow, it is argued, sharing of a commons is better than copyright for intellectual property. But it is not the case that the concept of a commons applies to today's world. Private property in contemporary society is maintained and kept up better than publicly owned property. Since someone must ultimately pay for the whole system, we have to maintain incentives for writers and creators in order to continue to assure the supply of writings and creations.

In the area of journal prices, it is true that one gets what one pays for. Scholars are free to move to alternatives to journals as channels for publication. As in the case with print publications, however, networks will thrive under the current copyright provisions, as long as these provisions assure compensation that fuels the system of creation and discovery.

"The Impact of Network Technology on Social Values, as Reflected in Legal Ownership of Intellectual Property," by Peter Lyman

Although we commonly speak of a "computer revolution" as if technology was a causal factor in history, technology itself reflects the culture and values of its designers and users. In thinking about "network technology" we need to think about the culture of those who designed and use the network, and the implications of those values for copyright.

Copyright is a legal right that reflects the culture of those who produce and read books, rather than a static social fact. The problem of intellectual property rights in a technological era is not copyright, it is a means to the end defined by the Constitution, "progress in the sciences and useful Arts." To think about the future of copyright we need to understand how a technological age contributes to progress.

Peter Lyman is director of the Center for Scholarly Technology and associate librarian at the University of Southern California. His presentation focused on the cultures and values that are shaping the issue of copyright in network environments. How are computer media, like networks, changing publishing, knowledge itself, and the legal mechanisms with which their use and exchange are governed?

The popular vision of the knowledge culture of the future is derived from the behavior of scientists and technologists who use the Internet--a national network that connects Department of Defense researchers at universities and companies. This knowledge culture has two distinct characteristics, each of which has profound implications for copyright. A programmer once defined a library as a "place where knowledge is in a fixed graphic form in a fixed geographic place." This definition reflects a culture in which no authority is given to an "author" or to a "publisher." Rather, "texts" are to be shaped by the questions of a reader, who defines the order that information is to take, who changes texts, and who republishes them. This culture reflects the kind of knowledge commonly used by scientists on the network, often numeric data, technical documentation, or electronic mail. It has led to the creation of a new kind of text, called hypertext, in which these kinds of uses of information are applied to printed texts.

Printed texts generally reflect another kind of knowledge culture, in which the writer becomes an "author," that is, has authority over the shape of the narrative; and in which the publisher takes responsibili- ty for the validity of the knowledge printed, and for its distribution. This authority is reinforced by the fixed nature of knowledge on the printed page; in a computer environment every text is flexible in form, can be copied without effort, and can be distributed interna- tionally at will. Copyright takes much of its power from the nature of the print medium, and network media undermine that power. However there is a cultural issue here as well: hypertext uses a technology designed for and by an information culture to shape copyrighted texts originating in a print knowledge culture.

Science is a culture of collaborative work in which intellectual products are often exchanged or shared as gifts, not turned into intellectual property by copyright or patent. Scientific papers are often distributed electronicallybecause their value diminishes with time; their publication in print is for archival value, but they have often been distributed and absorbed into the mainstream long before they are printed. These works are often collaborative, written by many authors, often geographically dispersed, occasionally including researchers in many countries. Each aspect of this culture of collaboration is in tension with copyright of printed materials.

This culture led Harlan Cleveland to describe an information commons as an international "pool" of information that is a shared human resource (like a sea). Electronic information is the currency of the growing international democratic movement, since it cannot be controlled by governments.

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However, the information culture that Lyman describes is not a universal knowledge culture; it has a distinct sociological and economic context that may limit its validity as a picture of the future of knowledge in networked environments. In defining these limits, we encounter questions that will require us to invent something like copyright for an electronic environment.

The users of the network are highly educated, and able to make judgments about the quality of networked information. Thus, they are able to tolerate the electronic publication of vast amounts of unedited and potentially unreliable knowledge that has been "published" by networked users. Clearly copyright promotes the sciences and useful arts by providing a mechanism for promoting the quality of published knowledge; how will quality be promoted in a networked environment in which the general public will be accessing information? How will information be organized? Archived? Preserved?

The network information culture only appears to be free; in fact its users are subsidized by government contracts or by higher education. The infrastructure of hardware has been subsidized as well as the information exchanged; it would not have been possible without this subsidy.

By today the question is whether there is an economically viable model for a networked public information system that is capable of supporting both public and private knowledge. Among other things copyright is an economic mechanism that pays for the creation and distribution of knowledge; what is the equivalent in electronic environments?

The knowledge culture that dominates the network is based upon quantitative data, which is easily organized in databases and which requires further analysis to have true economic value. But there are many other kinds of knowledge that require different formats, and different traditions of reading. It is not clear how the network can support these other knowledge cultures.

This brief analysis is not intended as a critique of electronic environments; rather Lyman's intent is to describe the cultural context that has shaped the design and use of network technology. The network knowledge culture is predicated upon resources that the public will not have, and thus is not an adequate model for electronic publication in the future. For example, if electronic publication is to promote progress in the sciences and useful arts, it will have to be accessible through public libraries and to small busi- nesses. What is the electronic equivalent of the Carne- gie Library?

On the other hand, this critique is not an indirect endorsement of print copyright as an extensible model for electronic environments, as copyright lawyers contend. The differences between electronic and print

media have profound implications for copyright. While it is possible to cripple technology to preserve copyright in a traditional form, to do so would certainly create a competitive disadvantage in a world economy and would hardly serve the great public end for which copyright was invented.

Lyman expressed the hope that his comments have suggested that the public interest would be well served by a dialogue between technologists and publishers; technology has created new knowledge formats and cultures that are of great value, but that lack an economic foundation, organization, and a mechanism for ensuring validity; publishers have expertise in such economic mechanisms, in the organization of knowledge, and in quality control. On the other hand, publishers are surely aware of the economic crisis that surrounds printed knowledge, and could use technology to control costs and provide better knowledge formats. We need to help reinvent copyright together.

"Copyright Procedures from the Legal Publishing Perspective," by William H. Lindberg

Bill Lindberg is manager of Educational Services, West Academic Programs, West Publishing Company.

His presentation uses the West Publishing Com- pany's perspective as both a scholarly and commercial publisher. He pointed out that educational pricing discounts provide significant reductions from commercial rates in many instances, raising questions about how to apply the "fair use" provision that Section 107 of the Copyright Law describes. This situation applies not only to science and technical publishing, but also to the professional literature of both law and medicine. The challenge in the competitive market is how to reward those undertaking risks while, at the same time, protecting the social benefit of the intellectual products resulting from creativity. The ability to provide access while also ensuring compensation means that there is an inherent competing tension in the scholarly publishing field.

The rights and permissions functions have histori- cally been treated cavalierly and casually. Clerical routines associated with rights and permissions have bogged down, especially as the introduction of new alternative media has instituted variant methods. Permission fees are traditionally split between the author and the publisher in part as fiduciary for author's interest. Permissions typically split revenues evenly between the publisher and author.

Use significantly impinges on market differently for trade, scholarly, academic, and scientific publishing. Rights and permissions, therefore, vary according to the different publishing discipline context involved. For example, the copyright holder for a poem has strict

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permission requirements that sometimes no more than 10 lines may be used.

The Copyright Clearance Center presents opportunities for clarifying the design of a collective licensing vehicle that has been recently broadened from an original emphasis on scientific and technical materials into a more general tool through which publishers are free to set the fees. Current developments in the rights and permissions arena are the bill that has been introduced by Senator Gore to eliminate the 1 lth Amend- ment immunity for copyright infringement and the McGraw Hill pilot project to create customized texts in the accounting field.

"A Scholar's View of Intellectual Property in the Year 2000," by Richard Van Orden

Two years ago, after moving from the University of Utah libraries to OCLC, Richard Van Orden, program director for Research and Academic Libraries at the Online Computer Library met with Gerald Grob, the highly respected historian from Rutgers University. They were part of a group planning a possible full-text database on CD-ROM in American history. In introducing himself, Grob stated his philosophy of history, "We believe too much in our ability to understand and influence the future." The changes in Eastern Europe, broccoli, the second of two current scandals in Wash- ington, the problem of electro copies, and the difficul- ties in forecasting sales of electronic publishing licenses reminded Van Orden of this wise skepticism. Despite the critical need for knowledgeable planning followed by good implementation, "We believe too much in our ability to understand and influence the future."

Leaving the roots of Van Orden's graduate work in history, his talk is not history because it projects how the scholar, particularly the historian, will conduct research a decade from now. This is a description of the nature of intellectual property and how the individual scholar will identify and acquire it. At the conclusion, several related issues of intellectual property rights will be suggested. As opposed to this emphasis on research, Van Orden referred to the article on copyright and teaching by Philip Altback in the recent issue of the SSP Letter.

The debate is seemingly endless on how significant a role electronic information systems will play in the various disciplines of scholarly communication at the beginning of the next millennium. Wilfrid Lancaster asked the provocative question in his 1978 book, Toward Paperless Information Systems, in which he stated:

I know that not all readers will be able to accept the inevitability, the desirability, or

even the feasibility of a world in which much of the professional communication is electronic...I have seen increasing evidence that we are indeed moving to a largely paperless environment and I have come to regard this as a natural evolution process in professional communication.

Lancaster then asked if paper will be as important in the information systems of the year 2000 as it is today (1978)? "Almost certainly not" was his answer.

Van Orden takes the side of the loyal opposition in answering Lancaster's question. Yes, paper and print will be as important in a decade from now. Gerald Salton, the ASIS Award of Merit winner, agreed at last November's annual meeting. In fact, he said, Lancaster couldn't be more wrong because more paper not less is used in the information society. The more appropriate question is: "What wilt be the combined role of print, microform, video, electronic databases, and other media in the evolving academic research environment in ten years?" To date, most scholars are making increased use of computers by electronic information in supplementing rather than supplanting paper as the means for individuals to store the content of the material, the intellectual or informal message itself. Many automated databases, especially the portable ones such as CD-ROM, are stillbibliographic in nature. The end result of a citation search is often a printout used to locate the article or book which is, of course, what's really needed. A recent study of printers in the United Kingdom projected an increased use of paper during the next decade.

In their study for the American Council of Learned Societies five years ago, Herbert Morton and Anne Price surveyed over 3,800 scholars from the social sciences and humanities. Only 18 percent of those who responded rated accessing online databases as either "very important" or "somewhat important" to their research. A doctoral dissertation by Bouazza in 1986 found that computer information services rated the lowest in terms of usefulness among fifteen possible sources for physical scientists, social scientists, and humanists at Carnegie Mellon University. In a 1988 article for the Journal of Academic Librarianship, Mary Folger recorded similar disinterest in online information and in leaving the faculty office to go to the library for services. A 1989 survey of scholars by Martha Lindeman of OCLC's Office of Research found that only one-forth of those randomly selected from the National Faculty Directory used an online information service or read text on a screen that was written by someone else even once a month.

Although some scholars, particularly those with new Ph.D.s in the sciences, are increasingly using their

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personal computers to search electronic information, direct or mediated use by researchers on a routinebasis is not common. Personal files, journals to which one subscribes, books in a personal library, pre-publication articles, and material from the campus library are still the most likely sources o f new and old knowledge. Some senior faculty seldom conduct literature searches, having assigned it to industrious graduate assistants or commercial entrepreneurs.

Especially in history, much of the original research is conducted with primary source documents generated before computers if not typewriters. These and other manuscripts may have been produced before either 1909 or 1976 copyright laws. An anthropological study of research at UCLA found that history faculty tend to work from informally categorized piles of paper stacked around the office. Martha William's Information Market Indicators reports very low use of online humanities databases. In an insightful article titled "Online in the Humanities: Problems Not Possibilities," Peter Stern summarizes the situation:

Scholars in many of the branches of the humanities, especially in history, have been generally slow to respond to these new opportunities...That scholars in the humanities have been flocking to use computer technology is not in doubt. But online services for scholars in the humanities are rare and their use is still sporadic for many different reasons.

Massive changes in the copyright law do not seem to be warranted. Rather than creating another era of copyright law, most issues can be resolved by the contract and license agreements negotiated for access to electronic information. The licensing agreements extend beyond the lone researcher and should be addressed at the institutional level. The idea of a scholar opening packages and evaluating numerous shrink-wrap licenses in order to do research is a nightmare! At the same time, there is a need at academic institutions for greater education in intellectual property rights and the nature of contracts that regulate access to electronic information at individual work- stations. With bibliographic identification, with acquir- ing research materials, with copyright, with contracts, the publishers, libraries and information services, and other partners in the scholarly communication chain must better understand and cooperate with one another to simplify the flow of knowledge from researcher to researcher.

[Peter Young]

"Current Ideas about Ownership of Scholarly Communication," by Ann Okerson

Ann Okerson, director of the Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing of the Association of Re- search Libraries, summarized "Current Ideas about Ownership of Scholarly Communication" from a librarian's point of view, stressing the pragmatic rather than the idealistic.

Simply put, there is movement on campuses to re-examine and re-order the idea of academic copyright ownership, paralleling an early one to retain patent rights. The nature of the publisher/author contract for journals is presently:

The publisher produces the product, makes whatever money the sale of the work brings, and controls the right of subsequent re-use for about a lifetime.

The author achieves publication ("making public") in a form appropriate to the work described; receives validation from his or her peer group; receives promotion and distribution of his or her ideas to those interested in the author's work; and is able to take a tangible product as evidence of accomplishment to promoting committees, grant- ing agencies, and other rewarding entities.

In the last few years, universities, librarians, and scholars have begun to pay attention to scholarly communication and publication as buying publications has become untowardly expensive (it has never been INexpensive), but also because it became clear that there would be less real money each year; that the U.S. dollar would never again be worth a whole dollar; that the expense of information was directly impeding access to research results, especially in the sciences; that the present scholarly publishing system was experiencing delays and scholars were routinely bypassing it to communicate in much faster ways--that the system itself is increasingly flawed.

The 119 ARL libraries spent over $250,000,000 on serials in 1988/89. These same universities provide much of the support for research via salary, laboratories, support staff, and other resources. In a parallel to patent behavior, they could opt to retain some ownership control and help bring the written work to market via a local or national university network publishing mechanism. Several scenarios regarding financial remuneration and prioritizing preferred publication outlets are feasible. The changes could be relatively simple and elegant, requiring absolutely no changes to current copyright legislation but only to institutional policy. Several early signs of interest


include the Coalition for Networked Information (a joint venture of ARL, EDUCOM, and CAUSE).

Discussing these ideas with publishers has pro- yoked reactions that giving one-time only publishing rights would cause the end of scholarly publishing as we know it and put the journal out of business. It is far more accurate to say that many pressures combine to endanger scholarly publishing as we know it; and the combination of these pressures forces us to seek solutions. One possible outcome is that some publications would be taken over by universities. Universities may be expected to be more altruistic where publishing is concerned than with patents for at least two reasons:

Universities are interested in reallocating some of the $250,000,000 currently being spent on serials, rather than on making a profit in reselling scholarly articles.

The consequence of sharing ideas is that the originator's workbecomes better known, bringing even more of the validation that both the creator and institution seek. Such broad availability supports the historic development and present concept of scholarly publishing as an activity, which does NOT make money for the creator, the concept that ideas ought to be widely spread around, not hoarded for the elite.

The future of scholarly publishing is far from clear. However, new trends and possible new sources of competition to the existing order could change the marketplace or at least cause present publishers to respond quickly and imaginatively to them. It is hoped that the outcome of the current situation, although we appear to responding to it as an economic problem, will move in morally "right" directions: cheap, quick, wide, friendly availability of information to those who seek it.

The final session speaker was Eamon Fennessy, president of the Copyright Clearance Center. Young asked him to give a "review and summary of the policy issues, problems, and opportunities concerned with intellectual property rights in the electronic age," but Fennessy declined, declaring he was "no guru with all the solutions." His talk, instead, reviewed the CCC's experience with handling photocopying, describing developments from 1976 to the present. He pointed out that CCC has experience in regulating copyright in the international arena, citing recent agreements with Russia, Norway, and Spain. Pilot projects to measure copying are presently underway at three universities (Stanford, Michigan, and Northeastern) that will conclude in early 1991. Electronic use is also being monitored at four or five corporate libraries. With the

right spirit and cooperation, we can get this (determining how to enforce copyright in an electronic environment) done, he said.

In the interesting discussion period that followed, Meyer related a situation in which a publisher of a newsletter that is printed on colored paper offered a reward to anyone willing to "snitch" on his or her firm for distributing white copies (therefore photocopied, in violation of copyright laws) of that newsletter. Lyman agreed that, as legal and technical enforcement in an electronic environment becomes more difficult, moral and ethical controls must be developed. Beth Lucy, Arizona State, and Ann Okerson, ARL, both supported the right of universities to retain copyright for works written by their faculty, while Pat Pennick, formerly oflEEE and now a consultant, explained how unworkable and expensive that development would be.

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE

22-27 Jor~ 1990 CHICAGO~ ILLINOIS

ALCTS Task Force on the Economics of Access to Library Materials

The task force presented its final report to ALCTS members in a program on 26 June. Chair Robert Wedgworth, Columbia School of Information and Library Science, commendably tried to overcome a scheduling change and delayed the start of the program, but only about 50 people attended. Wedgworth and task force members representing the National Library of Canada, National Library of Medicine, and the Associa- tion of Research Libraries made brief presentations expressing their concerns about economic access to library materials and support for the report.

Professor Eugene Wang, Office of Scientific and Technological Policy and scientific advisor to the White House, gave a longer presentation. He discussed two current trends: the increasing numbers of scientists and correspondingly expanding need for scientific training. In his view, scientists in the near future will publish by transmitting their publications through national networks, and the amount of data will be enormous. He did not name NREN, the National Research and Education Network, proposed by Senator Albert Gore, but one assumes it is one of the networks he alluded tO.

In the discussionperiod, members of the audience challenged Wang's assertion that improved electronic access to bibliographic information will solve the problems identified by the report. Wang apparently did

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not understand the question, and chair Wedgworth interceded to agree that the problem of increasingly sophisticated access to citation information without funding to obtain the full text of identified documents was the heart of the issue. His view of the future of scholarly communication was an elitist one, in which significant scholars will use sophisticated networks. He showed no appreciation for the importance of providing access to information for other types of users or of the archival function.

Copies of the report were distributed. The eight- page report summarizes the problem in five pages and lists ten key assumptions. The assumptions for the 1990s are grim, assuming that costs will continue to increase, library budgets will remain flat, and "profit- taking beyond 'normal levels' will continue to be practiced by some publishers unless external pressure from market forces can reverse this trend." Introducing its recommendations for action, the report states, "These assumptions suggest a situation that will get much worse before it gets better." Here is a summary of the six recommendations:

1. that ALA/ALCTS endorse the establishment of liaisons to other agencies and investigate the most appropriate means within its structure to stimulate a strong, continued forum of dialogue among librarians, publishers, and library users;

2. that ALA/ALCTS support the work of the ARL Office for Scientific and Academic Publishing, the Book Industry Study Group, and other similar efforts;

3. that librarians foster the development of healthy competition, especially in the world of scholarly and scientific publishing, by supporting those publishers who keep price increases at reasonable levels and by limiting business, where possible, with those who do not practice such restraints;

4. that ALA garner the interest and support of the National Science Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and other national societies and organizations devoted to education and research in developing a higher priority for libraries and information resources as integral components to the national agenda for education and research;

5. that ALA through LITA intensify its support for alternative technologies for the dissemination of information by both the public and private sector vendors. Such developments as the proposed NREN should be encouraged with the understanding that concerns for intellectual property rights will be respected; and

6. that ALA and other organizations encourage the development of more research on effective ways to control the growth of budgets for materials without significantly diminishing support for education and research. Such efforts should include exploring the limits of resource sharing as a means to stretch budgets.

The recommendations are very general and include no specific mechanisms for implementation. Neverthe- less, the report concludes optimistically by stating the shared interest of "key members of the education and research community" in "providing an unimpeded flow of research information to those who need it." The optimism of the report's conclusion and the presentations of task force members seemed inconsistent with the text and assumptions of the report. The recommendations, conclusion, and presentations seem to statethat goodwill, dialogue among the parties concerned, and technology will eventually solve all problems. No plans for immediate or even short-term relief were advanced. The report makes no progress beyond the Report of the ARL Serials Prices Project (which it refers to extensively), released more than a year earlier.

According to Karen Muller, ALCTS executive director, the ALCTS board accepted the report with thanks and dismissed the task force. Determining a course of action and deciding how to distribute the report is on the board's agenda for its next meeting in September 1990. The board is committed to building on the work of the task force and of accepting the challenge of taking a leadership role in addressing the critical issues related to the economic access to library materials.

[Corrie Marsh, Richard Ring]

ACRL Discussion Group on Journal Costs in Academic Libraries

Chair Ann Okerson, ARL, invited three speakers to address the general topic "The Law and Scholarly Publishing." All three speakers gave thoughtful and thought-provoking presentations. William Hannay, a lawyer with Schiff, Hardin & Waite, Chicago, spoke about "Antitrust Issues in Publishing." He cited precedents and noted that the absence of "commercial" (i.e., for-profit) motivation has been significant. He concluded that possible library actions such as boycotts of specific publishers are new territory; it is not clear whether the law would consider such action to be collusion to limit competition, or whether the non- commercial motivation would be more important. Richard Meserve, with Covington & Burling, Washing- ton, DC, covered "Legal Issues in Scientific Journal Publishing." One of the cases he discussed was the Gordon and Breach lawsuit against his clients, Henry


Barschall, the American Physical Society, and the American Institute of Physics. Harold Shill, political science professor and library director at West Virginia University, addressed the "Priviatization of Public Information: Its Effects on Libraries." He has been involved from a public policy viewpoint in monitoring and attempting to reverse decisions by the federal government to priviatize government produced information. The discussion that these talks engendered lasted beyond the allotted time. Incoming chair Bob Houbeck, University of Michigan, can be expected to continue the excellent record of this discussion group.

A L C T S S e r i a l s S e c t i o n A c q u i s i t i o n s C o m m i t t e e

Chief committee business was the discussion of two guides and a glossary that are in preparation for publication. Several years ago, another ALCTS committee prepared a revision of the Guidelines for Publishers, Agents and Librarians in Handling Library Orders for Serials and Periodicals, published by ALA, RTSD in 1974. Therevisionhas been retitledthe Guide for Handling Library Orders fo r Serials and Periodi- cals. At the 1989 annual conference, that draft was

referred to this committee for revision. The inherited revisions were first discussed at the midwinter 1990 meeting, and the first draft prepared by this committee was discussed at this meeting. The committee also received the first draft of the Guide to Serials Vendor Performance Evaluation. The committee agreed to exchange comments and prepare new drafts of both guides for review at the midwinter 1991 meeting. The committee has also compiled a glossary of nearly 400 serials acquisitions terms and is considering publishing it separately. The drafts will probably not be ready for public comment until at least midwinter, but anyone interested in commenting is welcome to contact committee chair Jana Lonberger, Georgia Institute of Technol- ogy, at (404) 894-4517.

COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS?

To comment o r supply news, please contact October Ivins at (504) 388-4364, or by electronic mail: [email protected] or Ivins on DataLinx. Mailing address: Serials Services Department, 241 Middleton Library, Louisiana State University Librar- ies, Baton Rouge LA, 70803.

(continued from page 67) knowledge medium, and I doubt they shall ever disappear. But organization of libraries by publication pattern or physical form is inappropriate for the person who approaches the library seeking to discover something new, to learn, to experience the artistry of literature, music, or painting, to drink from the fountain of knowledge. Where is the natural law that states that the intellectual heritage of humanity shall be found first in books, then in serials, and lastly in other formats?

The new paradigm is based on the assumption that knowledge-in-use--in the hands of a reader, viewer, or listener--is worth more than knowledge-at-rest--in a document sitting on a library shelf. The rest is up to us.

lntner is associate professor, Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Boston, Massachusetts.

WANTED: ALUMNI OF THE UNDERGROUND AND ALTERNATIVE PRESS

Pierian Press is putting together a unique history of the underground and alternative (u/a) press of the Vietnam years. Unlike many histories, which have emphasized the "mainstream underground papers" on the two coasts, this history will be a compilation of candid, insightful stories written by alumni of papers around the country. The strength of the u/a press was not that it produced a few well known papers but that it was everywhere. The book attempts to capture some of that feeling.

A sampling of publications that will be represented includes: Great Speckled Bird, Oracle, Joint Issue, Augur, Fifth Estate, Furies, Fag Rag, Avatar, Getting Together, Penal Digest International, Off Our Backs, Rag, Ann Arbor Sun, Rising Up Angry, Space City, Freedom of the Press, Muhammad Speaks, Hundred Flowers, Black Panther Inter- communal News Service, College Press Service, Above-

ground, Liberation News Service, Gidra, Palame, Vortex, Great Swamp Erie Da Da Boom, Akwesasne Notes, Free For All, Both Sides Now, Guardian, Kudzu.

In addition to the histories, the book will include representative writings from the period, a national directory listing and content summary of major research collections of Sixties and Movement materials, an annotated bibliogra- phy of books and articles in print about the u/a press, and other essential research information.

According to editor Ken Wachsberger, "The Radical Right promoted their version of the Sixties during the Reagan years. It's our turn now."

Anyone interested in contributing a history or desiring to know more about the project can write to Pierian Press, P.O. Box 1808, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 or call (313) 434- 5530.

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Documents

Serials prices: Column 9