Re: Wiley-Blackwell Adopts Condense and Rotate Printing Process for Select Journals

[bweil@library.berkeley.edu]

Yes, ACS pulled a real bait and switch.  We thought we were 
purchasing a usable archival print journal and instead received 
an unarchival and unusable product. The the text was difficult to 
read and the inner margins were not suitable for binding.  We 
tossed these issues and canceled our print subscription.  There 
was no point in spending any money trying to bind them. 
Publishers should simply stop printing their journals rather than 
switching to this 'Condense and Rotate' nonsense.  I was very 
disappointed with ACS' lack of integrity.

Beth Weil
Marian Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library
UC Berkeley

> Dear colleagues,
>
> Last year (2009) during the running volume of "Analytical
> Chemistry" the American Chemical Soc. effected the same "Condense
> and Rotate Printing Process" as is now announced for selected
> Wiley-Blackwell Journals. But ACS had not announced this change
> neither in advance nor delayed. The scaling down of lettering,
> graphs and figures impaires the readability heavily.
>
> Binding will obscure part of each article page.
>
> Those volumes are hardly suitable for archiving purposes. I guess
> that this measure of "Condense and Rotate Printing" is a means to
> increase profits for the publisher (when print subscription fees
> are not reduced according to the savings) but the main purpose
> seems to force libraries to change to an online-only subscription
> (a back-door approach?).
>
> For core journals this strategy may be successful. For the
> "besides the core" journals the "Condense and Rotate Printing"
> will rank those journals up on individual library's list of
> candidates for future cancellations.
>
> I would be glad to see publishers committing their lobbying
> machinery to fight for shrinking VAT for science and education
> online media instead of shrinking printed articles.
>
> Regards
> Joachim Meier
> Head of Library
> Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)
> (http://www.ptb.de)
> GERMANY
> E-mail: Joachim.Meier@ptb.de