Re: Congratulations to AAAS (and a few others)

["John Cox" <John.E.Cox@btinternet.com>]

David Goodman is unfair on scholarly journal publishers who operate
subscription period geared to the calendar year.  The January 1 start date
is traditional in journal publishing simply because that is what the
academic library community has required since journals became a
significant communications medium for research in the 40s and 50s.  The
system of volume/issue/calendar year is all of a piece.  And libraries
want complete volumes, don't they?

In fact, most periodical publishers - popular magazines, trade and
technical magazines, and journals with a significant individual customer
base - all operate on an 'any time start' basis.  Scholarly journals
don't, simply because libraries want the calendar year.

Just to emphasise the point, I remember that, during my days in the early
1990s as head of Blackwell's subscription agency, periodicals with any
time starts caused great problems for libraries.  They were a significant
part of our customer service activity.

If librarians require change to an any time start pattern, publishers will
provide it - though it cannot happen overnight because most journal
publishers' subscription management systems are geared to the calendar
year. But I suspect David is in a minority.

John Cox

-----Original Message-----
From: David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Date: 14 September 1999 00:32
Subject: Congratulations to AAAS (and a few others)


>Mike is of course totally correct that Science is among the few scholarly
>publications that is available on other than a calendar year basis. (The
>Nature group of titles is another prominent one; so are some medical
>journals.) In his enlightened position he may not be aware of just how
>inflexible most publishers are, at least with respect to scholarly science
>and technology titles.
>
>--
>David Goodman
>Biology Librarian, and
>Co-Chair, Electronic Journals Task Force
>Princeton University Library
>dgoodman@princeton.edu         http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/
>phone: 609-258-3235            fax: 609-258-2627
>
>__________________________________________