College and Research Libraries Longitudinal Study of Scientific Journal Prices in a Research Library Kenneth E. Marks, Steven P. Nielsen, H. Craig Petersen, and Peter E. Wagner The investigators conducted a benchmark longitudinal study of scientific jour- nal prices fora land-grant research university to study the determinants of price increases over time. The study covered the period from 1967 to 1987, and included journal titles from a variety of publishers, disciplines, and countries. Information was collected about many factors that could influence serial prices. It was determined that inflation and greater journal length explained most of the increase in journal prices. However, it was also found that prices of journals from commercial publishers increased much more rapidly than those from nonprofit publishers over the study period. D ncreases in the prices of pro- fessional journals over the last decade have probably - · elicited more attention from librarians and the academic community than any other single issue in library services. This issue was one of the prin- cipal concerns at the 1988 New Orleans and 1989 Dallas American Library Asso- ciation meetings, and it has reached the U.S. Congress in the form of a Congres- sional Research Service Report prepared by Richard E. Rowberg, chief of the Sci- ence Policy Research Division. 1 A recent report by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) vividly describes the sit- uation as having "spiraled out of con- trol'' .2 Review and commentary on journal pricing are regular and substantial~ A number of publications provide annual updating of journal price changes for the previous year by broad subject category.3 Other studies offer analyses of price in- creases by specific publishers within specific disciplines. 4 A third group de- scribes processes for reducing journal holdings and the effects of reductions on the library and its patrons.5 While the above-mentioned literature is extensive, little involves lengthy statis- tical analysis. Often the articles are anec- dotal and descriptive. Apart from the ARL report, the few quantitative studies done have been limited to specific sub- jects and have covered rather short time intervals with a restricted set of jour- nals.6 Except for the ARL report, we have been unable to identify benchmark stud- ies examining the problem for a large Kenneth E. Marks is Director, Academic Library Services, East Carolina University. Steven P. Nielsen is Fiscal Officer, Merrill Library and Learning Resources Program, Utah State University. H. Craig Petersen is Professor, Economics, Utah State University. Peter E. Wagner is Provost, State University of New York at Binghamton. 125 126 College & Research Libraries number of journals and, at the same time, a sufficiently long period of time to allow generalization about trends in pricing policies. The present work is closely related to the ARL project-1 However, some differ- ences make these two reports comple- mentary rather than redundant. The purpose of the ARL study was "to iden- tify factors contributing to the rising costs and to suggest possible remedies." 8 Our study was undertaken to create a mechanism that would provide better price information that could be used for decisions on the acquisition and reten- tion of journals. Both studies reached conclusions that are, if not identical, en- tirely compatible. The ARL study focused on four major publishing firms, one each from the Netherlands, West Germany, England, and the United States. A sample of 167 titles was drawn using the publishers' catalogs. The sample was selected to en- sure that five disciplines were covered: physical sciences, medicine, biology, earth sciences, and technology. Data were collected for the years 1973-1987. Compared with the ARL reports, the present study involves a much larger and broader sample of journals. It at- tempts to hypothesize possible causes of journal price increases and to ascertain from an examination of actual price data whether any causes could be empirically verified. The research consists of a longi- tudinal examination of the prices of a representative collection of scientific, tech- nical, and agricultural journals from 1967 through 1987. DATA COLLECTION The data used in this study were as- sembled by first selecting a random sam- ple of 1,000 titles from the 1971 Utah State University Library Catalog of Seri- als. The 1971 Catalog of Serials was used because it was the first organized list of serials for the library and provided the most accurate list of serials being re- ceived in 1967. The investigators did not attempt to confine the study to a partic- ular group of publishers as was done in the ARL study. The titles selected repre- March 1991 · sen ted publishers from the private, insti- tutional, academic, governmental, and societal sectors. Nine countries were rep- resented in the . sample: the United States, England, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, West Germany, Aus- tralia, Japan, and Austria. Titles included the physical, biologi- . cal, and mathematical sciences; agricul- ture; engineering; technology; natural resources; medicine; general science; and a small, unclassified category. A total of forty-seven different disciplines was rep- resented. The authors determined the focus of this study should be scientific journals because of the attention they were receiving from librarians. A second study is under way to examine a similar set of journals in the humanities, arts, and social sciences held in the Utah State University Library collection. From an initial number of more than 1,000 titles, more than half had to be eliminated for a variety of reasons. Approximately 300 titles were removed from consideration because they had ceased publication or the library had canceled its subscription during the period 1967 to 1987. Another 350 titles were withheld from the analy- sis because of missing, incomplete, or unavailable data. The authors wanted to ensure the results were not distorted by the missing data elements. The 370 titles analyzed in this study had been held by the library for the entire time period, and for each year we verified the number of pages, number of volumes, number of articles, cost to a U.S. library subscriber, and in the cases of foreign titles, cost to the library subscriber in the country of origin. Work continues on acquiring the missing data and verifying data ele- ments that were determined to be unre- liable for the journals not included in the final sample. Table 1 presents characteristics of the . journal sample. The largest number rep- resents the biological sciences. About 67 percent of the journals were of U.S. ori- gin, with titles from the United Kingdom ranking second in total number. About . 40 percent of the journals were pub- lished by U.S. or foreign commercial firms; the remainder came from U.S. or foreign institutional, academic, govern- mental, and societal sources. Many factors can affect the levels and rates of increase in journal prices. The following determinants of journal prices were examined: length (i.e., number of pages published annually), inflation in t~e nation of origin (i.e., the country in which the journal was published) for for- eign publishers, inflation in the dollar, differential pricing between nation of ori- gin and the United States, pricing practices of the profit-making versus noncom- mercial publishers, and price variations by discipline. TABLE 1. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JOURNAL SAMPLE Disci~ line Number Percentage Physical Sciences 96 26 Biological Sciences 158 43 Engineering 51 14 Mathematical 22 6 Sciences Other 43 11 Total 370 100 Publisher Type: U.S. Commercial 72 19 U.S .Noncommercial 178 48 Foreign Commercial 76 21 Foreign Noncommercial 44 12 Total 370 100 Nation of Origin United States 249 67 United Kingdom 59 16 West Germany 21 6 Netherlands 19 5 All Others 22 6 Total 370 100 Wrich's International Periodical Direc- tory was used to verify the name and type of publisher for each journal in the sample. Students, after training, collected the following additional data by direct examination of the. individual journal · Scientific Journal Prices 127 volumes: presence or absence of adver- tising; pages charges; use of photos, charts, graphs, and color; copyright ownership; whether the journal is a trans- lation; self-indexing; frequency of publi- cation; number of volumes per year; number of pages; and number of articles. Although we had wanted to include sub- scription or circulation data, they were generally unavailable and, when avail- able, suspect. Information on prices presented its own challenges. We did not use Ulrich's pricing data because they were consid- ered unreliable. Due to the lead-time re- quired to assemble the data for Ulrich's publication, pricing was often six months to a year out-of-date. Instead, Utah State University Library serial pay- ment records, Faxon pricing informa- tion, and prices found in the journals themselves were used. We believed that prices paid by the library reflected the prices paid by other academic libraries because of the variety of subscription mechanisms used by the Utah State Uni- versity Library. Even with several sources of pricing information, subscrip- tion data for foreign titles were often difficult to locate because of the ''bill later" approach. Pricing data for the early years in the study were the most difficult to acquire and verify. Library serial payment information often did not exist or was recorded in so cryptic a man- ner as to be unusable. Because of these factors, a number of titles were elimi- nated from the study; a similar experi- ence was reported in the ARL study. For each foreign title, we attempted to obtain prices in the currency of the na- tion of origin, as well as in U.S. dollars. Unfortunately, these figures were notal- ways provided in the physical volumes. Currency exchange rates were used to convert prices of foreign journals to U.S. dollars. Adjustments for inflation were made using price indices for each coun- try. Data on inflation rates and currency exchange data were obtained from The U.S. Statistical Abstract, The Europa World Yearbook, and United Nations Statistical Yearbook. 128 College & Research Libraries 300 250 200 Sub8crlptlon Price 150 (doll••> 100 50 March 1991 · 279.64 · · Current Dollars - Constant Dollars 82.15 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 Figure 1. Trends in average subscription price: Constant and Current dollars. (For U.S. sub- scribers) RESULTS A comparison of annual subscription prices to a U.S. library buyer for the twenty- year period 1967-1987 in cur- rent and constant (i.e., inflation ad- justed) dollars is shown in figure 1. Although the average current dollar price has increased ten times during the period, the constant dollar price only tri- pled. Clearly, general inflation is the sin- gle most important cause of journal price increases during the last twenty years. To determine how much of the price increase over time was due to changes in journal length, we computed the aver- age price per page in current and con- stant dollars. The results are shown in figure 2, which does indicate some effect due to journal length when compared to figure 1. In current dollars, the cost per page was six times greater in 1987 than in 1967, while in constant dollars one page in 1987 cost about 78 percent more than its cost in 1967. Thus, inflation in the dollar and changes in average jour- nal length accounted for most of the overall cost increase of ten times be- tween 1967 and 1987. The remainder of our study dealt with possible causes of the residual price increase over time-- about 78 percent between 1967 and 1987. Differential pricing by publishers of foreign journals is one possible explana- tion for the residual price increase. Prices charged to U.S. libraries for foreign jour- nals have always been higher than prices for the same journals in the country of publication. Some differential would be expected in order to cover shipping costs. But is has been alleged that in re- cent years some foreign publishers have sharply increased prices in the U.S. rela- tive to those in the nation of origin. This proposition was examined using our data set. For all foreign serials in the sample for which the data were avail- able, we converted the U.S. dollar price for each year to the currency of the coun- try of origin for"that year. We then calcu- lated the ratio of the U.S. price to the country of origin price. The average for the journals in the sample is shown in figure 3. Although rather large fluctua- tions appear, no clear trend emerges over the twenty-year period. The ratio was about 1.3 in 1967, that is, the price in the U.S. averaged about 30 percent more than the price in the country where the journal was published. The ratio fluctu- 0.2 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 Price/ Page 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 ___.....--- -- .029::.:....:::..:..:-- 0.02 Scientific Journal Prices 129 --- --- . 0.18 - - Current Dollars - Constant Dollars ; 0.052 - 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 Figure 2. Trends in average price per page: Constant and Current dollars. (For U.S. Subscribers) 1.6 1.4 1.2 U.S. Price( Nation of 0 _ 8 Origin 0.6 0.4 0.2 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 Figure 3. Differential Pricing: average price to U .S. Library divided by average price to library in nation of origin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 130 College & Research Libraries ated over the twenty-year period and declined to around 1.1 in 1986-87. Be- cause the ratio has not increased over time, our data suggest that, on average, differential pricing by foreign publishers did not significantly contribute to the upward trend in journal prices to U.S. libraries. Clearly, general inflation is the single most important cause of journal price increases over the last twenty years. Another factor that may explain price trends is currency exchange rates. To ex- amine this factor, we first subdivided overseas publishers into two groups. Group One included Australia, France, and the United Kingdom, while Group Two comprised Austria, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. These groups were delineated based on the behavior of the dollar against their currency. As shown in figures 4a and 4b, the exchange rate for each country was normalized to 1.00 for 1967. Thus the figures show exchange rates in relation to that base year. Values greater than 1.00 indicate that the dollar had increased in value, and vice versa. Figures 4a and 4b illustrate that the dollar generally in- creased in value against the currencies in Group One and decreased in value ver- sus the Group Two currencies over the twenty-year period. The differences in price per page be- tween these two groups of countries were quite remarkable. As shown in fig- ure Sa, one page from Group Two cost the American buyer almost twice as much (in constant dollars) in 1987 as in 1967. But the 1987 cost per page for jour- nals from Group One was three times the 1967 figure. Figure Sb shows the price per page to a buyer in the nation of ori- gin, in the inflation adjusted currency of that nation. Here the difference is even more dramatic. For a Group One buyer, the 1987 price per page was 1.4 times the price in 1967; however, the correspond- ing ratio for Group Two domestic buyers was 4.7 times. Evidently, Group One na- March 1991 tions managed to hold the line on do- mestic journal prices much better than did Group Two. The price increased much more to a domestic buyer in Group Two over the twenty-year period than to an American buyer of the same journal, while the opposite was true for journals published in Group One nations. Another hypothesis is that price in- creases for journals have been more rapid in certain disciplines. To evaluate this possibility, the serials in the sample were divided into five groups: biological sciences, physical sciences, engineering, mathematical sciences, and other. The constant dollar average price per page for each category for each year was com- puted and is shown by the trend lines in figure 6. Although the price per: page has increased in each of the five groups, there is no clear evidence that the in- creases have been more rapid in one cat- egory than in the others. Another way to analyze the data is by examining the distribution of price in- creases by discipline. For each of the journals in the sample, the increase in price per page between 1967 and 1987 was computed. The journals were then ordered from highest to lowest increase in price per page over the twenty-year interval. This array of 370 journals was next divided into quintiles, with sev- enty-four titles in each group. The titles in the first quintile were those with the smallest price per page increase, and those in the fifth quintile exhibited the largest increase between 1967 and 1987. Finally, the percentage of titles from each discipline falling in each quintile was determined. These percentages can be used to eval- uate the distribution of price increases by discipline as follows. If 20 percent of the journals in a category were found in each quintile, the distribution of price increases for that category would be identical to that of the entire sample. In contrast, if a substantial percentage of titles for a discipline appeared in the fifth quintile (those with the largest price in- creases), that discipline could be identi- fied as contributing disproportionately to higher prices. Scientific Journal Prices 131 -U.K. -France - -Australis 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 Figure 4 a. Group I Comparison of exchange rates from 1967 to 1987. (Note 1967=1.00) 0.80 Relative value of U.S. 0 60 dollar · 0.40 0.20 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 0 Netherlands -Swlterlsnd -- Germany -Japan X Austria Figure 4 b. Group II Comparison of exchange rates from 1967 to 1987. (Note 1967=1.00) 132 College & Research Libraries March 1991 0.09 ,0.083 0.08 . ' 0.075 0.07 0.06 0.05 Price/Page (Dollars) 0.04 0.042 0.03 0.02 0.01 0 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 Figure 5 a. Comparison of average Price per page, in constant dollars, to U.S. buyer, for two groups of countries: Group One includes Australia, Germany, Japan, Netherlands and Switzerland. 0.2 0.193 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 Prlce(P~~ge (dollars) 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 .041-. 0.0299 0.02 0 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 Figure 5 b. Comparison of average price per page in constant local currency for two groups of countries: Group One includes Australia, France and the United Kingdom; Group Two includes Austria, Germany, Japan, Netherlands and Switzerland. · Figure 7 shows the quintile distribu- tion by discipline. Note that 28 percent of physical science journals are in the fifth quintile while only 16 percent are in the first quintile. Note also that only 4 percent of the mathematical sciences and 18 percent of the engineering titles are in the fifth quintile, but 9 percent and 31 percent respectively are found in the first quintile. This suggests that price in- creases have tended to be somewhat larger in the physical sciences. However, figure 7 indicates that the differentials are not large. It is not apparent that price increases in any one discipline are the major cause of the overall rapid increase in journal prices. Still another possible explanation in- volves pricing practices of commercial versus noncommercial publishers. Fig- ure 8 displays constant dollar average prices per page for journals categorized by publisher type. Foreign journals pro- vided by commercial publishers have been, on average, more expensive throughout the twenty-year period than were the other three publisher catego- 0.07 0.06 0.05 0.04 Price/Page 0.03 0 .02 0.01 Scientific Journal Prices 133 ries, while serials from U.S. noncommer- cial publishers have been consistently lower priced. Prices of journals from foreign com- mercial publishers have increased more rapidly than those from other publishers. Quintile analyses for the four pub- lisher types are illustrated in figure 9. Some 44 percent of the journals from foreign commercial publishers are in the fifth quintile (the largest increases in price per page from 1967 to 1987), but only 3 percent are in the first quintile. Only 20 percent of the titles from U.S. commercial publishers are in the fifth quintile, with 44 percent in the two quin- tiles depicting the smallest price in- creases. The implication is that foreign commercial publishers are responsible for a disproportionate share of journal price increases. - Biological Sciences - Physical Sciences - - Engineering Sciences - Miscellaneous Sciences - Mathetlcal Sciences Figure 6. Trends in constant dollar average price per page: By discipline. (For U.S. subscribers) 134 College & Research Libraries 40.00% 36.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00% FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH FIFTH March 1991 Ill Biological Sciancea ~ Phyaical Science• • Enqin-rinq Science• Ill other Science• 8 Hath-tical Science• Figure 7. Increase in price per page between 1967 and 1987: Discipline. (For U.S. Subscriber) 0 .09 0.08 0 .07 0.06 - Foreign Commercial 0.05 - Foreign Non-commercial Pric~age 0.04 - US Commercial · · US Non-commercial 0.03 ~ .. - -- - ..... 0.02 0.01 0 Figure 8. Trends in constant dollar average price per page: By publisher type. (For U.S. sub- scribers) 45.00% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00% FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH Scientific Journal Prices 135 FIFTH !I1I U.S. Commercial !:1 U.S. Non-commercial • Foreign Commercial !111 Foreign Non-eommercial Figure 9. Increase in price per page between 1967 and 1987: Quintile distribution by publisher type. 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.1 · · Three Publishers Price/Pige (dollars) 0.08 - All Other Publishers 0.06 0.04 --__ _.......------ 0 .02 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 Figure 10. Trends in constant dollar average price per page: Three Publishers vs. All Other Publishers. (For U.S. Subscribers) 136 College & Research Libraries March 1991 80.00% 79.1 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% • Three Publishers Percentages in each quintile 40.00% 9 All Other Publishers 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0 2 4 5 Quintiles Figure 11. Increase in Price per Page between 1967 and 1987: Quintile distribution for Three Publishers vs . All Other Publishers. (For U.S. Subscribers) A recent study by Richard M. Dougherty and Brenda L. Johnson identified three for- eign commercial publishers as having had a significant effect on journal price escala- tion.9 To relate our findings to theirs, the constant dollar average price per page for the same three publishers is compared to the average for all other publishers in fig- ure 10. The average price per page in 1967 was much higher for the twenty-four journals in the sample from the three publishers. But prices for journals from these publishers have also increased more rapidly over time, especially from 1967 to 1987. The results of quintile analysis are even more striking. Figure 11 shows that 79 percent of the journals from these three publishers fall in the quintile con- taining the largest price increases and another 16 percent are in the next quin- tile. Thus 95 percent of the titles from these three foreign commercial publish- ers are in the top 40 percent of price increases for the entire sample. It is note- worthy that the same three publishers were among those studied by ARL, which concluded that their price in- creases could not be explained by in- creases in producer cost. CONCLUSIONS Based on a sample of 370 scientific journals, the average journal subscrip- tion price to U.S. libraries was ten times greater in 1987 than in 1967. But, when the influences of inflation in the U.S. dol- lar and increases in journal length are removed, the constant dollar price per page has risen 78 percent during the twenty-year period. Unless publishing costs increased much faster than prices in general (the Consumer Price Index more than tripled during the period), other factors must account for the residual in- crease over time. A number of factors were considered as possible explanations. One was the price differential charged to U .S. buyers for foreign journals. Some differential is justified by shipping costs. But we found no evidence that the differential has in- creased over time. Price increases were also analyzed by discipline. Our data do not indicate that rates of increase in price per page have significantly differed be- tween disciplines. Price effects associated with currency exchange rates were also considered. Producer nations fall into two rather dis- tinct types according to the behavior of their currency against the dollar. As ex- pected, prices of foreign journals to U.S. libraries increased more rapidly for those serials originating in countries where the value of the U.S. dollar had declined over time. Finally, the effects of publisher type were evaluated. We found that foreign commercial publishers charge substan- tially higher prices per page and that their rate of increase between 1967 and 1987 was greater than those of journals from other publisher types. The data indicate that the three foreign publishers studied by Dougherty and Johnson and ARL increased their prices per journal page much faster than did other publish- ers. In constant dollars the average price per page for the twenty-four journals in the sample from these three publishers increased by $0.055 during the twenty- year interval, while the average for the 346 journals from other publishers in- creased by only $0.019 during the same period. Library managers should seek ways to exert more effectively their market power as clients in dealing with com- mercial publishers. The finding that prices and rates of increase have been higher for journals from foreign commercial publishers does not necessarily imply price goug- ing, because many journals from non- profit institutions or societies are subsidized. It is also possible that the foreign firms tend to publish journals with higher production and distribution costs because of color, photographs, art, Scientific Journal Prices 137 quality of printing, and shipping costs. However, the ARL study does not sup- port this conjecture. 10 Consequently, we conclude that the actions of foreign commercial publishers explain much of the rapid escalation in average journal prices in recent years. However, our data do not allow us to determine whether profit rates for these publishers have increased over the same period. Indeed, such data are not avail- able. What is clear is that research librar- ies in the United States deserve a justification for these price increases. In- dividual libraries are very reluctant to cancel subscriptions to important jour- nals. At the same time, however, pub- lishers are at least as dependent on U.S. libraries as the libraries are on the pub- lishers. In the future, library managers should seek ways to exert more effec- tively their market power as clients in dealing with commercial publishers. When publishers announce price in- creases that exceed the general rate of inflation or are substantially greater than the industry average, library managers should use the forums of professional meetings, trade publications, and indi- vidual correspondence to indicate their concerns and to request justification of the publisher's actions. Librarians should remember that pub- lishers, especially commercial publish- ers, are in business for profit, and in the final analysis, their actions will ensure the attainment of this objective. The cir- cumstances of the information economy have provided publishers of scientific journals with an extremely attractive op- portunity to enhance their position in the marketplace. Nothing is fundamentally wrong with this. However, librarians must remember they have the power to make choices among publishers and to seek existing alternatives or assist in the development of alternatives to the tradi- tional systems for distributing scholarly information. 138 College & Research Libraries March 1991 REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. Richard E. Rowberg, "Research Journal Prices-Trends and Problems," Report #88- 264SPR. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress), March 31, 1988. 2. Association of Research Libraries, Report of the ARL Serials Prices Project (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, May 1989). 3. Examples include but are not limited to Norman B. Brown and Jane Phillips, "Library Materials Price Index," RTSD Newsletter 7:15-16 (Mar./ Apr. 1982); Norman B. Brown, "Price Indexes for 1972," Library Journal 97, no. 13:2355-57 (July 1972); Rebecca T. Lenzini, "Periodical Prices 1981-1983 Update," The Serials Librarian 8, no. 2:107-18 (Winter 1983); 9, no. 2:13-24 (Winter 1984); 9, no. 4:119-30 (Summer 1985); 11, no. 1:107-15 (September 1986); Gerald R. Lowell, "Periodical Prices 1979-1981 Update," The Serials Librarian 5, no. 3:91-99 (Spring 1981); 7, no. 1:75-83 (Fall1982); J .B. Merriman, "Comparative Index to Periodical Prices," Library Association Record 73, no. 8:156-157 (Aug. 1971); 76, no. 8:153-154 (Aug. 1974); 77, no. 8:189-190 (Aug. 1975). 4. Examples include but are not limited to S.C. Abrahams and R.A. Matula, "Crystallo- graphic Publishing in Retrospect and Prospect," Acta Crystallographica A44:401-410 (July 1988); H.H. Barschall and J.R. Arrington, "Cost of Physics Journals: A Survey," Bulletin of the American Physical Society 33, no. 7:1437-47 (1988); Henry H. Barschall, "The Cost of Physics Journals," Physics Today 41:56-59 (July 1988); Henry H. Barschall, "The Cost of Physics Journals," Physics Today 39:34-36 (December 1986); F.F. Clasquin and Jackson B. Cohen, "Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Journal Prices," The Serials Librarian 4, no. 4:381-92 (Summer 1980); Frank C. Erk and Sharon Kelly, "The Cost of Biological Books in 1986," The Quarterly Review nf Biology 62, no. 4:411-13 (Dec. 1987); Paul H. Rib be, "Assessment of Prestige and Price of Professional Publications," Amer- ican Minerlogist 73, no. 5 and 6:449-69 (May-June 1988); Paul H. Ribbe, "Mammon and Prestige in Earth Science Departments," American Mineralogist 73:1221-34 (1988); Bettie Scott, "Price Index for Legal Publications," Law Library Journal 71, no. 1:195-96 (Feb- ruary 1978). 5. Examples include but are not limited to Richard M. Doughtery, "Are Libraries Hostage to Rising Serials Costs?" Bottom Line 2, no. 4:25-27 (1988); Richard M. Dougherty and Brenda M. Johnson, "Periodical Price Escalation: A Library Response," Library Journal 113, no. 9:27-29 (May 15, 1988); Richard M. Dougherty and Nancy E. Barr, "Paying the Piper: ARL Libraries Respond to Skyrocketing Journal Subscription Prices," The Jour- nal of Academic Librarianship 14, no. 1:4-9 (1988); Lelah Conrad, "The Effects of Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Fluctuation on Serials Budget Estimating," The Serials Librar- ian 7, no. 4:65-66 (Summer 1983); Robert L. Houbeck, Jr. "If Present Trends Continue: Forecasting and Responding to Journal Price Increases," The Serials Librarian 13:113-127 (October-November 1987); Monica Blake, "Journal Cancellations in University Librar- ies," The Serials Librarian 10, no. 4:73-80 (Summer 1986); Charles Hamaker, "Library Serials Budgets: Publishers and the Twenty Percent Effect," Library Acquisitions: Prac- tice & Theory 12, no. 2:211-19 (1988); Charles Hamaker, "Serials Costs and the Carrying Ability of Serials Budgets 1987," Serials Librarian 13:129-34 (Oct./Nov. 1987); Huibert Paul, "Serials: Higher Prices vs. Shrinking Budgets," Serials Librarian 9, no. 2:3-12 (Winter 1984). 6. Ann Okerson, "Of Making Many Books There Is No End," Report on Serials Prices for the Association of Research Libraries (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Librar- ies, May 1989). 7. Economic Consulting Services, "A Study of Trends in Average Prices and Costs of Certain Serials over Time," prepared for the Association of Research Libraries, (Wash- ington, D.C.: Economic Consulting Services, Mar. 1989). 8. ARL, Report of the ARL Serials Prices Project, "Overview and Summary," p. 1. 9. Richard M. Dougherty and Brenda L. Johnson, "Periodical Price Escalation: A Library Response," Library Journal113, no. 9:27-29 (May 15, 1988). 10. Economic Consulting Services, "A Study of Trends," passim.