Verbal comments to slide presentation. The slides contain (a) tables comparing what the University of Chicago pays for JACM, SICOMP, and JCSS, and the page numbers published; (b) excerpts from the Cornell Senate Resolution of Dec 17, The full text of the Cornell Resolution can be found at and was distributed at the meeting.

I made the following comments during the slide presentation. Regarding part (a), to compare prices, I used one of Don Knuth's measures, the cost per 10,000 characters. I calculated these numbers based on the following sources: - subscription fee and page number data received from the chief librarian of the University of Chicago math, stat & CS library; - my estimate of the number of characters per page in each of the three journals; - the published membership fees of ACM and SICOMP.

I calculated the cost of subscription by an individual to JACM and SICOMP as the sum of the member subscription fee plus the society's membership fee. The figures represent paper subscription rates only. The main reason is that the fee for electronic access can change radically overnight. According to our librarian, the institutional subscription rate for SICOMP cannot be established because of bundling. Therefore I used a wild guess which appears to greatly overestimate the cost if the institution subscribes to 3 or more SIAM journals. Next come the tables shown at the business meeting.

2003 individual subscriptions 2003 institutional subscriptions

# pages published

Other libraries might come up with somewhat different figures - pricing is no longer uniform; but I doubt anyone will find a library which will not support Cornell's conclusion that at Elsevier's rates, the library operation is not sustainable.

Regarding item (b), I pointed out that that senats of ivy league schools are not known to be gatherings of revolutionary hotheads, so the very strong language used in the Cornell resolution deserves special attention. The Cornell Senate Resolution does not mince words. It uses phrases like “crisis in the cost of journals,” “literally unbearable,” “unsustainable,” “threatens to undermine core academic values,” “Elsevier's prices are radically out of proportion with the importance of those journals…”

The last paragraph of the Cornell resolution should be taken to heart by all scientific communities, including ours: “the Senate encourages the faculty to vigorously explore and support alternatives to commercial venues for scholarly communication.” In the wake of this call, I expressed my hope that our community will rapidly expand both the society-owned journals and the open-access online publications. By donating our volunteer work as authors, editors, and reviewers to commercial publishers, we contribute to creating and perpetuating the crisis. Next come the excerpts from the Cornell Senate Resolution shown at the business meeting. (Emphasis added.)

Cornell Faculty Senate Resolution Resolution regarding the University Library’s Policies on Serials Acquisitions,with Special Reference to Negotiations with Elsevier A Crisis in the Cost of Journals in the Sciences and Social Sciences * * * Commercial publishers charge more— sometimes many times more—for their materials than scholarly societies or university presses do.... Elsevier... is the best example.

Over the last decade Elsevier’s price increases have often been over 10% and occasionally over 20% on a year to year basis. * * * In 2003 Cornell subscribed to 930 Elsevier titles at a cost of approximately $1.7million. Those 930 titles represent fewer than 2% of the total number of serials titles to which Cornell subscribes; the $1.7 million comprises something over 20% of the library’s total serials expenditures, including those of the Medical School.

[Price] increases... that Elsevier regularly expects have become... unbearable. The long-term trends... are... unsustainable. * * * The library... has identified several hundred Elsevier journals for cancellation at the end of there is... increasing militancy among university librarians and faculty with regard to modes of response [... to] Elsevier’s pricing practices. * * *

BE IT RESOLVED THAT: (4) Recognizing that the cost of Elsevier journals in particular is radically out of proportion with the importance of those journals to the library’s serials collection... reduce its expenditures on Elsevier journals [by more than 25%] * * * (2)... selective cancellation of Elsevier journals... (3)... current trends regarding serials costs are unsustainable...

(5) Recognizing that the increasing control by large commercial publishers over the publication and distribution of the faculty’s scholarship and research threatens to undermine core academic values promoting broad and rapid dissemination of new knowledge and unrestricted access to the results of scholarship and research, the University Faculty Senate encourages the library and the faculty vigorously to explore and support alternatives to commercial venues for scholarly communication.