Scientific Publisher Sues Over Journal Pricing Study

Charging “unfair comparative advertising,” the scientific publishing firm of Gordon & Breach is suing the American Institute of Physics over an article and a letter about the costs of - professional journals that were published in the organization’s monthly magazine, Physics Today. The case raises numerous questions—in part because the New York-based publishing firm has so far chosen to press the case not in the United States, where Physics Today is published, but in West Germany and Switzerland. Partisans for Physics Today charge that the lawsuits could inhibit scientific research, especially research about the explosive rise of journal prices (The Scientist, July 24, 1989, page 1); Gordon & Breach replies that the article is example of biased research performed by a scientist with a stake in the study’s result. The lawsuits, which seek injunctions, retractions, and damages, also raise questions about methods of comparing the costs of professional journals. Their hearing dates have not yet been set. The author of the article, “Cost-Effectiveness of Physics Journals” (July 1988, pages 56-9), is Henry H. Barschall, a retired professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The article was a summary of a more detailed survey published the same month in Bulletin of the American Physical Society (pages 1437-47), coauthored by Barschall and a colleague in the Wisconsin physics department, John Arrington. The study ranked a number of professional publications by two factors: cost in cents per 1,000 characters of type; and impact—the average number of citations per article in the two years following publication. Dramatic Results The results reported by Barschall and Arrington were dramatic. For example, in the area of condensed matter physics the cost-to-impact ratio ranged from 0.22 for Physical Review B to 45.0 for Gordon & Breach’s Physics and Chemistry of Liquids. Gordon & Breach is crying foul, noting that Physical Review B is published by the American Physical Society, one of AlP’s member societies. According to the publishing firm’s Zurich lawyer, Alfred Gilgan, the article thus represents a form of comparative advertising, and because of its allegedly unfair methodology is subject to sanctions under Swiss law. In general, journals published by the professional societies rank at the top of Barschall’s tables, while the commercial publications lie at the bottom. A similar lawsuit has been filed in West Germany. Gilgan says these countries were chosen because of the large market they represented for the publishing firm and the wording of their unfair competition laws. “Gordon & Breach,” Gilgan says, “just checked to see where we could do anything against this damaging publication.” Gilgan’s claim that the case comes under Swiss jurisdiction is based on the assertion that both Physics Today and many Gordon & Breach publications are sold there, competing with each other not only for readers, but for contributors. The publishing firm’s suit in Zurich canton’s commercial court against AlP and APS seeks a declaratory judgment that the article constituted unfair competition, an injunction against further publication of the study’s results, publication of a retraction, and an unspecified amount in damages (which Gilgan says will be determined during the discovery process). A lawsuit against Barschall in Zurich district court seeks the same redress, except for the retraction. After the Physics Today article appeared, AlP offered to provide Gordon & Breach with space in its letters colunm to reply to the article. The publishing firm, however, objected to Physics Today’s intention to allow Barschall to respond to Gordon & Breach’s charges. Gilgan says such an exchange would have portrayed Physics Today as an “amicable arbiter between two independent parties. That is just not true. Professor Barschall, as we see it, was just used as the speaker for AIP.” Gilgan calls Bamchall “camouflage” to disguise AlP’s “interest as competitor of Gordon & Breach.” Gordon & Breach’s lawsuit also cites a March 1989 letter by Barschall in Physics Today (page 15) that defended his methodology. At the time of the article’s publication, Barschall was a member of AIP’s Publishing Policy Committee, a fact disclosed in the biographical note at the bottom of the article’s first page. Richard Meserve, a Washington lawyer who is representing AIP, APS, and Barschall against the Gordon & Breach legal action, denies any sort of collusion between AlP. and the physicist. The study was Barschall’s own idea, he says, and was “done out of his own concern about journal prices.” He adds that Barschall’s participation in AlP and APS was typical of most physicists, he held no paid position in the societies, and he had “no financial stake in the success or failure of their journals.” Barschall, 74, himself says “the idea that I have a financial interest in the American Physical Society or their journals is pretty far-fetched,” He has long served in a variety of organizational and editorial positions, he says, but only as a member of the profession. The retired experimental nuclear physicist adds that he continues to pay membership dues and subscription fees. Barschall’s methodology comes under intense criticism from Gilgan, who calls the work “erroneous and misleading.” He says that in the Bulletin study on which the Physics Today summary is based, Barschall used only 11 of Gordon & Breach’s 24 publications, an unrepresentative sample, and that in the Physics Today article, the two Gordon & Breach journals cited were the most expensive and third-most expensive of the firm’s titles. He adds that six of the 11 journals cited are nonresearch journals, and one of them, Fundamentals in Cosmic Physics, is a handbook. Meserve responds that Barschall simply used the titles available in his University of Wisconsin library and never presented his survey as all-encompassing. Gilgan calls the cost-per-thousand index “a totally unsecured quantity” that does not take into account graphs and charts, which the firm says cost twice the amount to publish than the same page area that contains text. Impact, Gilgan says, is directly related to circulation, not value, and hence is “a very, very dangerous measurement and very misleading.” Gordon & Breach titles, he says, are more specialized than the society journals, and thus more valuable to the specialist. “If a specialist buys an AlP journal, he’ll get cheaper characters,” Gilgan says, “but he gets cheaper characters he’s not interested in.” Gordon & Breach’s other complaints—which were detailed in an approximately 90-page letter to AlP—cite the impossibility of comparing journals with different policies on page costs, translation expenses, airmail costs, and, reprint charges. The firm also challenges the figures Barschall uses as Gordon & Breach’s subscription prices and says that AlP’s status as a member-supported nonprofit organization further skews comparison. Meserve declares that Gordon & Breach misses the point of the article, which meant to compare only prices, and not value. He says Physics Today has a very sophisticated audience that understands the disfunction. Gordon & Breach’s charges, he says, “are completely and adequately answered” by the Bulletin article, which explains its methodology, “a standard technique to evaluate journal costs.” He adds, “it seems odd that one American publisher would sue another American publisher in a foreign court over an article in an American publication.” Meanwhile, participants in the journal debate are worried about the suit’s implications. Chuck Hamaker, director of the Louisiana State University library, says, “I consider this approach could have a chilling effect on the way scholars and librarians discuss the issue of the high price of journals.” Another librarian adds that this kind of lawsuit could inhibit further research on the subject. But Gilgan says that Gordon & Breach does not intend to inhibit research. The Zurich lawyer says, “Our argument is that research is wonderful, bat please don’t make research with wrong figures, and please explain how the research was done. We feel that this was not duly done. Everything that they could do wrong they did wrong. For his part, Barschall remains concerned but confident that he will prevail in the lawsuit. He says, “It certainly makes my retirement more interesting.”

Scientific Publisher Sues Over Journal Pricing Study

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