NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES

                SUPPLEMENT TO NO. 6 -- AUGUST 2, 1989


I THOUGHT THIS WAS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO GET OUT TO YOU BEFORE THE NEXT 
NEWSLETTER.I JUST GOT IT THIS MORNING FROM CHUCK HAMAKER. VERY SORRY 
FOR THE DOUBLE OR TRIPLE SENDING OF NEWSLETTER 6 YESTERDAY. NEXT NEWS-
LETTER WILL NOT BE BEFORE THE LAST WEEK IN AUGUST. MARCIA


News is about to break that Henry Barschall, the author of "Cost Ef-
fectiveness of Physics Journals," which detailed cost per thousand 
characters in physics jornals correlated with impact factors, has had 
suits filed against him and the American Institute of Physics in Ger-
many, Switzerland, and probably Japan (although no details on the Jap-
anese suit are available). Gordon and Breach are filing suit. 

The German suit claims that the article is "advertisement" which, be-
cause it is comparative (i.e., one product against another), is pro-
hibited under German law. The Swiss suit is being held up at this 
stage because Swiss law requires the Plaintiff to put up court costs, 
etc., before hauling somebody into court. My understanding is that 
about 100,000 Swiss Francs will have to be deposited before the Swiss 
suit goes forward. I do not know details of the Swiss filing, but un-
derstand that there are better than 90 pages of documentation refuting 
Barschall's findings regarding Gordon and Breach titles.

The most obvious concern for the library community is that such suits 
can have, and may indeed be intended to have, a chilling effect on the 
exchange of ideas and information that have characterized the journals 
debate up to this point. As members of the library community have been 
threatened with lawsuits by G & B over the last few years, many indi-
viduals will be interested in how this progresses. The most pressing 
need is for Barschall and AIP to reach library groups or individual 
libraries in Germany and Switzerland with news of this attempt to put 
the fear of God in people who write about G & B. In addition, they 
need to reach those who will be sympathetic and understanding about 
what this action could mean to an open discussion of the issues, and 
who might even initiate an investigation of what those issues might 
be.

Garfield's commentary in the July 24 issue of THE SCIENTIST is, I 
think, a good point to begin some actual actions (i.e., development of 
an audit system for individual titles and, I would suggest, individual 
publishers). If the G & B/Barschall suits go on, that could severely 
limit participation in such an audit, which would not benefit anyone. 
I think the G & B approach (sue them if you don't like what they say) 
will be seen as an offense to what librarians and researchers alike 
believe in.

The next issue of AMERICAN LIBRARIES should have some brief details.


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