Publisher Blocks West German Mailing Of Journal

NEW YORK -- Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, pressing its battle against comparative price surveys, has won a temporary injunction against the American Mathematical Society blocking distribution in West Germany of the November 1989 Notices of the AMS, which carried one such survey. William Strong, attorney for AMS, says he is now consulting with the society's German counsel on how to respond to the injunction. Similar comparative price surveys have prompted the publisher to sue the American Institute of Physics (AIP), the American Physical Society, and retired University of Wisconsin physics professor Henry Barschall. Those three suits are pending in West Germany, France, and Switzerland (The Scientist, Sept. 4, 1989, page 4; and Feb. 5, 1990, page 5). Barschall conducted the price surveys that appeared in July 1988 in AIP's Physics Today and the APS Bulletin. The surveys placed several G&B journals at the high end of the scale in two measurements: price per 1,000 characters and cost versus impact. The society's own journals fared well in both categories. A 1989 survey of mathematics journals done by AMS (Notices, 36:1193-8) had similar findings. Spokesmen for the publishing company, which publishes 180 scientific journals, say that the core of the dispute is the question of what constitutes fair business practice. "The only thing that Gordon and Breach wants out of this is to get a decision from some neutral person as to whether the methodology of these surveys is fair or not to a commercial publisher," says Leslie Lupert, the publisher's lead attorney in the cases. Christopher Schneider, the company's international sales manager, emphasized the point recently in an industry publication, the Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues. "Make no mistake," Schneider wrote in the March 19, 1990, issue of the newsletter (19:2-3), "Gordon and Breach brought suit against a competing publisher, who is falsely stating that our prices are much higher than they really are." A survey sent to university librarians in January further fueled the controversy over Gordon and Breach's tactics. The survey, sent on the stationery of the London-based Foundation for International Scientific Cooperation, included questions asking librarians if they had canceled subscriptions to journals after reading the cost-comparison articles in Physics Today or Notices. Librarians are protesting the survey. Patricia Wilson Berger, president of the American Library Association, contends that the foundation is a Gordon and Breach "front" for obtaining information for the publishers's lawsuits. According to Vicki Banner, a public relations official representing Gordon and Breach, the year-old foundation is owned by Martin Gordon, the chairman of the publishing house. The firm's executives declined to comment on the survey, but in previously published reports they have denied that the survey has anything to do with their lawsuits. Also in previously published reports, Maurice Levy, the French physicist who heads the foundation, has said that Gordon and Breach asked the foundation to form an "impartial, international panel" to study the methodology used in the surveys. The questionnaire sent to librarians, he said, was part of the panel's effort "to ascertain some of the basic background information of the study." The panel, chaired by Lewis Klein of Howard University, is now analyzing the results, according to the reports. Klein could not be reached by The Scientist for comment. Some librarians and officials at the societies say that in Gordon and Breach's actions against these price surveys, the publisher has gone beyond the bounds of accepted practice. "No other scholarly publisher approaches their relations with societies, scientists, or librarians in this legalistic fashion," says Duane Webster, executive director of the Association of Research Librarians. "They [Gordon and Breach] stand alone in this confrontational, provocative strategy aimed at discouraging active exploration of publisher pricing practices." Such an approach, Webster says, "strikes at the heart of scholarship enterprise, which stands for open inquiry and the expression of ideas." The association has taken several steps in its campaign to counter the tactics of Gordon and Breach. Last week, at its annual meeting in New Orleans, the organization was to honor Barschall for his survey and for what Webster calls "his defense of freedom of expression." The association is also helping AIP and AMS defend themselves in court by doing a survey of prices that the company charges academic libraries. On March 27 ARL mailed a "Gordon and Breach editor-briefing package" to all of its members, including a summary of legal actions to date and a collection of articles that includes the AIP and AMS surveys. It also compiled and distributed a list of academic researchers who serve on the company's editorial board. "It is our hope that if scientists who are also G&B journal editors are briefed on the recent legal actions," writes ARL's Ann Okerson in a cover letter, "they might act to influence a good and early outcome in these matters. Ideally, Gordon and Breach would be encouraged to drop its costly and counterproductive litigation and discuss the issues in a more constructive manner." It's too early to know if the librarians' efforts will have any effect. Attorney Lupert says that Gordon and Breach officials prefer not to be interviewed about the matter until after a ruling by a West German court in the case involving Barschall, AIP, and its affiliate, the American Physical Society. Lupert says that his clients hope for two directives from the European courts. One is an order that would prohibit the societies from including the company's journals in future price surveys distributed in those countries. The second is a requirement that the society's journals print corrections of what he calls their "misleading" surveys. The societies, for their part, defend what they published and disagree that any mistakes were made. "We certainly don't agree that these articles are advertisements," says Richard Meserve, a physicist and a lawyer for AIP, APS, and Barschall. "The cost of science journals is a significant and legitimate concern to the scientific and library communities." Michael Pollet, a New York attorney who specializes in libel law, says that a verdict against what the societies have done could leave them with several unattractive choices: to stop overseas mailings of issues that contain price surveys, to publish different versions of the same issue in different countries, or to cease altogether the publishing of price surveys of any kind. Those choices amount to censorship, says ALA's Berger. "Gordon and Breach is holding the American Institute of Physics and the contents of its publications hostage," she says. "And we take a very, very dim view of censorship in this country." Berger says that the rapidly rising cost of science journals (The Scientist, July 24, 1989, page 1) makes it imperative for libraries to evaluate the relative worth of the journals they are now receiving. And she believes that the suits by Gordon and Breach are making such comparisons much more difficult. "They're trying to shut down dialogue on the whole issue of journals costs and their relative value," she says. "People are no longer willing to talk about their plans [to cancel a subscription] for fear of threatening letters and lawsuits," she says. William Jaco, executive director of AMS, says that the suits have made him "extremely cautious" about speaking out on the issue of journal prices. "When you're almost afraid to express opinions because you might be facing a lawsuit, it really dampens an open exchange," he says. "It's an unfortunate consequence for me, and a potential threat to all of us in the profession." Larry Katzenstein is a New York-based science writer.

Publisher Blocks West German Mailing Of Journal

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