College and Research Libraries Letters To the Editor: The article on "The Economics of Pro- fessional Journal Pricing" (C&RL 57 [Jan. 1996]: 9-21), by Michael A. Stoller et al., contributed to an interesting discussion of price discrimination, but it fails to ana- lyze the causes of the current crisis and presents a poor review of the literature. I feel that it may mislead more than it will inform your readers. The authors ignore a pivotal factor: how trends in circulation (unit sales) in- fluence pricing decisions. Their heavy reliance on the unsigned Economic Con- sulting Services (ECS) study might have been a warning of defect. The ECS study admitted that it lacked the circulation data essential to any analysis of profit- ability. As such it was a spurious basis for its client's accusations of profiteering by publishers and excessive publishing by researchers. The impact of falling circu- lation has been well documented by Ber- nard M. Fry and Herbert S. White1 and accurately forecasted by Donald W. King et aP Subscriptions to the otherwise suc- cessful Physical Review, for instance, dropped to one-half the level they were twenty-five years earlier. Unit prices must rise simply to cover costs of editorial preparation and overhead. ing library collection failures have led to a skyrocketing de- mand for interlibrary loan and document-delivery ser- vices. This seminal issue of funding has been presented so often-notably in 1976 by Fry and White, in 1984 by Ri- chard Talbot} in 1992 by the Advisory Panel for Scientific Publications,4 and in 1994/95 by Albert Henderson5-that its omission is truly puzzling. A likely con- tributor to universities' cuts in libraries has been the Weberian growth of admin- istrative expenditures (see graph). Aside from ignoring these basic eco- nomic factors, there are other major faults with this article. Not the least of these are its comparing library users with consum- ers of drugs, associating journal prices with the Consumer Price Index, and quot- ing that notorious financial illusionist, the late Robert Maxwell, as a reliable source! Albert Henderson Editor, Publishing Research Quarterly Bridgeport, Connecticut Trends in University Expenditures by Purpose 1976-77 to 1992-93 15% (Administration) ~'-. 5% ~--····\- ()% __ . .___X ,·· 10% -5% -10% -15% -20% Publishers do not operate in a vacuum. The more interesting eco- nomic trends are found in the budget priorities of universities. At the root of the falling circulation issue is the fail- ure to provide financial support for li- braries commensurate with the growth of research. Financial support (in constant dollars) to libraries in- creased only 1.4 times between 1977 and 1992, while expenditures for re- search increased 1.8 times. Database statistics indicate that the worldwide publication of journal articles and re- ports doubled during that period. Ris- Sowce: Digest of Education Statistics 301 302 College & Research Libraries Notes . 1. Bernard M . Fry and Herbert S. White, Publishers and Libraries: A Study of Scholarly and Research Journals (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1976). 2. Donald W. King, Dennis D. McDonald, and Nancy K. Roderer, Scientific Journals in the United States. Their Production, Use, and Econom- ics (Hutchinson Ross, 1981). 3. Richard Talbot, "Lean Years and Fat Years: Lessons to Be Learned," in Bowker An- nual1984 (New Providence, N .J.: R. R. Bowker, 1984) 1 7 4-82. 4. Advisory Panel for Scientific Pubs., "The Cost-Effectiveness of Science Journals," Pub- lishing Research Quarterly 8.3 (1992): 72-91. 5. Albert Henderson, "The Bottleneck in Re- search Communications," Publishing Research Quarterly 10.4 (1994-95): 5-21; and "Research Journals: A Question of Economic Value," Logos 6.1 (1995): 43-46. To the Editor: The January 1996 issue of C&RL is one of your best! The article by Michael Stoller, Robert Christopherson, and Michael Miranda was especially fine. It is an un- expected pleasure to read a clearly writ- ten, cogently reasoned analysis by au- Index to advertisers ALA Editions Amer. Inst. of Physics Blackwell EBSCO Library Technologies Minolta OCLC PAIS Readmore Todd Enterprises H. W. Wilson 202 294 205 201 cover 2 254-55 cover3,248 209 273 cover4 212 May 1996 thors knowledgeable in the field of eco- nomics. In the same issue, Terry Meyer and John Spencer mention the "intellec- tual isolation" of library science. The Stoller et al. article is a step toward end- ing this isolation. The authors make the excellent point that the users of journals (faculty members) must be made more aware of pricing and price discrimination. An additional point that has been made elsewhere is the suggestion that authors not offer their work to those journals that discriminate; but this will not happen in the current atmosphere of urgency to pub- lish. It is wonderful to see articles in a li- brary journal by nonlibrarians. More of this would be valuable; we all tend to be- come too involved in our own outlooks and the interdisciplinary approach is re- freshing. More, please! JanZuke Librarian Granite City Campus Library Belleville Area College