RE: Tempestuous Arguments

[William Sampson <William.Sampson@galegroup.com>]

Mr. Krumenaker is correct in explaining how our views differ regarding the
application of embargoes to Ebsco titles. My comparison was indeed to a
subset of Ebsco Host, not to the entire title inventory of Ebsco Host in
its entirety.

However, according to Mr. Krumanaker's analysis, Ebsco Host embargoes only
932 (or 15% of their title inventory - see below) According to the title
list for Search Premier, which by Mr. Krumanaker's own admission, is a
subset of Ebsco hosts, there are a total of 1607 embargoed titles (even
more if you add embargoes less than three months). Using this number,
Ebsco Host's embargo rate jumps from 18% to 31.5% (1607/5093).

Perhaps Mr. Krumenaker could shed some perspective on which is the correct
analysis.

>From "A Tempest in a Librarian's Teapot" below:

I did not "clean" this file of 5,093 titles, which was a few hundred more
than the original file sent to me. Nevertheless the conclusion shouldn't
differ. There are only 932 titles with embargoes in the periodical
(non-newspaper) listings. That's 18 percent of the titles. Of these 932,
the embargo is one year for 588, or 63 percent of the embargoed listings
and 11 percent of the entire periodical list. Most of the rest are 6-month
embargoes and only 52 titles (1 percent) have embargoes that extend more
than one year.

William A. Sampson
The Gale Group
Copyright & Licensing


-----Original Message-----
From: Ann Okerson [mailto:ann.okerson@yale.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 5:52 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Cc: larrykga@mindspring.com
Subject: Tempestuous Arguments 


This message is in reply to Mr. Sampson's inquiry about Mr. Krumenaker's
data.  Ann Okerson

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 16:46:48 -0400
From: Larry Krumenaker <larrykga@mindspring.com>
To: ann.okerson@yale.edu
Subject: Tempestuous Arguments

Dear Ms. Okerson,

I am the author of the Searcher article "A Tempest in a Librarian's
Teapot."  I've been forwarded some of the comments raised on your listserv
concerning my article.  As I'm not on your listserv, perhaps you can post
my response to your membership.  Some of the stated comments are opinions
to which one can argue without resolution but some comments are not
correct at all.

In particular, the comments of Mr. Sampson are offbase.  He wonders why he
gets 50% embargoed while I get 18%.  The answer is simple.  He is making a
comparison to one specific subset of EBSCO's product line.  I am using the
entire full text inventory regardless of which subset products the
publications are found in.  The comparison he uses isn't apples versus
oranges.  It's apples versus the entire produce stand.

The information that went into the article was provided by all three
companies.  Their title lists for the article are no different than the
files I regularly receive for my Net.Journal Directory/Net.Journal Finder
products so I don't see any obvious deception or conspiracy to provide
misleading information by any of the sources.  I cheerfully stand by my
analysis even if some of the parties are less than pleased with the
results (No! I won't discuss the privately received letters from EBSCO or
ProQuest...really, I won't....even if you or they--OW!--twist my
arm......!).

Sincerely,

Larry Krumenaker
**Publisher, Hermograph Press
***Editor, "Net.Journal Directory, The Catalog of Full Text Periodicals
Archived on the World Wide Web"  ISBN 1-930876-02-5 (9th Edition, July
2001) ISSN 1092-5279

-----Original Message-----
From:William Sampson [mailto:William.Sampson@galegroup.com]
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 6:50 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject:  RE: Two articles on aggregator exclusivity deals and embargoes

Mr. Krumenaker's conclusion in "A Tempest in a Librarian's Teapot" that
Ebsco's full-text embargo rate is 18% appears to be at odds with studies
posted earlier on this list-serv.

The following breakdown is taken directly from Ebsco's full-text title list
for Search Premier dated May 2001:

Total Full-Text Articles - 3,175
Titles with 3 month embargoes - 145
Titles with 4 month embargoes - 3
Titles with 6 month embargoes - 219
Titles with 9 month embargoes - 5
Titles with 12 month embargoes - 1,211
Titles with 18 month embargoes - 16
Titles with 24 month embargoes - 6
Titles with 36 month embargoes - 2
Total titles with embargoes 3 months or longer - 1,607
Percentage of titles with embargoes 3 months or longer - 50.6%

I would be interested in learning how Mr. Krumenaker arrived at his
conclusions. 

William A. Sampson
The Gale Group
Copyright & Licesning
800-877-4253 x8900