From: Wendy Helmstetter <whelmste@FIT.EDU> wrote Mar 30, 2011 4:21 pm

> Just out of curiosity, has anyone compared the subscription rate increases for any
> given time period for journals published by commercial publishers versus journals
> published by societies?

I demonstrated the delayed effect of "cost of living increases on journal prices in

"Forecasting periodicals prices," SERIALS LIBRARIAN 21, 4 (1992). 

Rates and rate increases have been compared for decades, usually on the basis
of dollars per article, per 1000 words, or some other measure.

Unfortunately, not all journals are the same, making for huge differences within a
large publisher -- larger within any group of publishers.

To be fair, you must (A) compare the increase in pages (or other metric) with the
increase in prices, and (B) compare publications that are actually "comparable"
in coverage, format and content. In other words, physics translation journals with
physics translation journals, general medical journals that carry ads with the like,
and so on. Some journals are so unique that they can be measured only against
themselves.

Gordon & Breach took the American Physical Society to court with a complaint that
the commercial use of their very broad surveys of physics journals were "false and
misleading" under Federal Law. It was a waste of time and money, of course, putting
the august Judge Leonard B. Sand in the position of ruling as sound, reliable, and
legal claims that publications with more typographic characters per dollar were
"more cost effective."

When the Beethoven Orchestra violinists argued for more pay, based on playing more
notes, the New York Times (March 28, 2004) covered it as a laughing stock.

Best wishes,

Albert Henderson
former editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY

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