College and Research Libraries


Letters 
Editor's note: 

Last year, College & Research Libraries reviewed and accepted for publication a paper 
entitled "Longitudinal Study of Scientific Journal Prices in a Research Library," by 
Kenneth E. Marks, Steven P. Nielsen, H. Craig Petersen, and Peter E. Wagner. The 
authors signed copyright forms dated 7/20/90 through 8/3/90. The copyright agree-
ment represents that the work is original and "does not infringe any subsisting copy-
rights." The paper subsequently appeared in the March issue of C&RL. 

Shortly after its publication, one of the editors of "The Future of Serials: Proceedings 
of the North American Serials Interest Group, Inc." (volume 19, nos. 3/4 of the Serials 
Librarian) forwarded a copy of it to me and suggested that I compare the Marks and 
Nielsen article with the one in C&RL. The comparison showed the articles to be virtually 
the same. The NASIG editor has copyright forms dated 6/8/90. 

After discussing the matter with the Board of C&RL, the NASIG leadership, and the 
ACRL Publications Committee, I sent a letter from the C&RL Board to Marks and 
Nielsen. Marks' reply is printed below. 

For the publishing record, the American Library Association does not own copyright 
for the C&RL article cited above. Scholars seeking reproduction of it should apply to 
Haworth Press. 

To the editor: 
Your letter of May 8, 1991, has caused both Mr. Nielsen and me considerable concern 

since we received it. Neither of us, at any time, contemplated or considered that we 
might be creating a copyright conflict or violation when we made the presentation to 
the NASIG annual meeting in June 1990. We believe we told the NASIG attendees that 
the findings of our study had been submitted to C&RL and, we hoped, would be 
accepted and published. At the time of the presentation to NASIG, we believed that we 
were offering a paper that was sufficiently different from that which had been submit-
ted to C&RL and was undergoing continued review and refinement. 

That we should have acknowledged in the C&RL article that the findings of the study 
had been presented at the NASIG meeting and were to be published in their proceedings 
is true. There is little to excuse that oversight. Suffice it to say, we should have been 
concentrating not only on making the requested editorial adjustments in the manuscript 
of the article but ascertaining that it conformed to the specifications of the C&RL 
instructions to authors. You have our public apology for that. 

The commitment that we can make relates to the careful avoidance of any noncom-
pliance with all instructions to authors, the letter and spirit of copyright. As concerned 
as we have been about other aspects of copyright, it is embarrassing to find ourselves 
in this situation. 

DR. KENNETH E. MARKS, 
Director of Academic Library Services, 
East Carolina University 

473 



474 College & Research Libraries September 1991 

To the Editor: 
The Choice Editorial Board and the editors approved a request from the Commission 

on Preservation and Access, in the spring of 1989, that Choice include acid-free paper 
information in the bibliographic entries that head our reviews. Choice uses the abbrevi-
ation "afp" for acid-free paper and prints this indicator before the ISBN. 

In reporting whether the book that is sent out for review is printed on alkaline paper, 
Choice relies on information provided by the publishers. The information comes from 
the published version of the book itself. Choice will not physically test book paper for 
a pH value. 

Robert Cohen, associate editor, Book News, Inc., in his letter to the editor (C&RL, May 
1991) called on Choice to indicate acid-free paper in our reviews. We do. I hope this sets 
the record straight. 

To the Editor: 

PATRICIA E. SABOSIK 
Editor & Publisher, 
Choice 

Marcia J. Myers and Paula T. Kaufman ("ARL Directors: Two Decades of Change" 
( C& RL May 1991)) have carefully and clearly documented the impressive rise of women 
to the ranks of ARL directors. But after completing their article, I was struck by the lack 
of consideration given to questions of race and ethnicity. Are there any minority ARL 
directors now? Were there any in 1970? That these questions were not even asked is 
unfortunate, especially at a time when diversity is such a broadly stated concern. This 
lapse is a clear reminder of how far the profession has to go before it can truly represent 
our society and its institutions of higher learning. 

DAVIDW. LEWIS 
Head of Research and Information Services, 
University of Connecticut