ARLO, a new electronic journal

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

Please excuse the cross-posting of this announcement. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 15:31:30 -0500
From: Scott Bennett <scott.bennett@yale.edu>
Subject: ARLO, a new electronic journal

Dear Colleague,

Robert Apfel is the Robert Higgin Professor of Mechanical Engineering at
Yale and editor of the electronic-only journal, Acoustics Research Letters
Online, or ARLO (please see http://ojps.aip.org/ARLO/main.html).  The
American Institute of Physics (AIP) publishes ARLO for the Acoustical
Society of America.  Bob has championed a striking business model for this
new journal that we want to bring to your attention.  If the wide-ranging
field of acoustics is of interest to your library's readers, we hope you
will consider subscribing to ARLO.

Bob Apfel, as editor of ARLO, is well aware that there is no such thing as
free information.  But individual subscriptions to ARLO are free.  Bob
does this by requiring authors to pay a manuscript fee of $350 for
accepted articles.  (The current rejection rate is about 40%).  For this
fee, authors get peer review of their work (including multi-media
materials), rapid publication, and infinite dissemination on the Web.  
Taking into account the Society's editorial costs and AIP's production
costs, 100 published articles a year represents the estimated breakeven
point for the direct operating costs of ARLO.

Bob is writing more fully about the business model for ARLO in an article
that Serials Review will publish in August.  As a part of this business
model, ARLO seeks library subscriptions priced at $150 annually.  This
money is used to enhance functionality for readers and to help assure that
content will be migrated technically and preserved effectively over time
by AIP.  ARLO also hopes to use subscription income to subsidize authors
in developing countries, so they can afford to publish in the journal.  
Another benefit of subscription is that libraries can bring bibliographic
information about ARLO into their catalogs and integrate ARLO into their
local presentation of electronic resources.  Doing this ensures that
readers are fully aware of and have facilitated access to this important
journal in acoustics.

We ask you to consider subscribing to ARLO because it offers a business
model that responds powerfully to the call made by libraries that
publishers maximize the benefits of online publication and minimize cost
barriers to access.  We believe libraries should be particularly
responsive to subscription fees that expressly acknowledge the need for
the long-term preservation of digital content.  We also admire ARLO's wish
to remain accessible to authors financially less well situated to publish
in a journal that ensures the widest possible access to readers.

Please have a look at ARLO and consider whether it is an appropriate
journal for your library.  However you may decide that, please know that
Bob Apfel is deeply committed to finding alternatives to traditional and
unnecessarily expensive journal publishing in the sciences.  He, and we,
would be glad to hear from you about this imaginative new venture in
journal publishing.

Cordially,

Scott Bennett 
Yale University Librarian

Ann Okerson
Yale Associate University Librarian