Differential Pricing and Exchange Rate Profits

Prior to 1993, Elsevier Science negotiated "spot rates" which were set sometime in the early summer and would depend on the value of the dollar relative to the European currencies on the day the currency futures were purchased. Futures would be purchased, usually in July, for actual currency delivery in January (i.e., six-month forward purchases). The difficulty in this approach was that Elsevier was dependent upon the dollar's value on currency markets during a very narrow window of time during the summer. In 1993, Elsevier Science implemented a policy to spread forward currency purchases, in monthly installments, over a twelve-month period running from July - June, in order to smooth the peaks and valleys of exchange rate fluctuation that can occur with spot rate purchases. In 1999, Elsevier Science announced that they would hold price increases for the complete package of their print journals to single digit figures in each of the currencies in which they invoice -- US dollars, euro and yen. While Elsevier Science's announced intent was to "create a much more predictable and stable pricing environment for the vast majority of our customers", the net effect appeared to lock in inflated US$ subscription rates and produce windfall exchange rate profits

The Future of Librarianship in Science and Technology Libraries

Librarians, especially subject specialists in academic sci-tech libraries, appear to be facing a very perilous predicament. Two of their major job responsibilities, developing subject collections and providing face-to-face reference service, are in rapid decline. Budget cuts, publisher packages for books and a transition to cost-per-use evaluations for journal subscriptions all clearly diminish the need for active collection development. Meanwhile, because of changes in information-gathering habits, users increasingly approach reference librarians as a last resort

ChemINDEX Database; The Professional's Version of ChemFinder.Com

ChemFinder.Com and ChemINDEX are interfaces that access the same database. ChemINDEX, however, provides greatly enhanced search, display and customization features (and without any pop-up ads). The common database has indexed nearly 80K compounds (with an additional 160K synonyms) from over 800 publicly available sites

Looming Threats to Society Journals

Now is not the time for members of professional scientific societies to be complacent or unengaged. The American Chemical Society Publications Division, as well as other learned society publishers, such as the Royal Society of Chemistry, may be overly confident that the obvious high quality of their journals will ensure their position against commercial competitors. In addition, when they resist open-access efforts, society publishers appear to be more aligned strategically with commercial publishers' short-term perspective than with the research community's need to easily access all relevant content over the long term. Societies need to adhere closely to their members' needs, even if that means a break with their for-profit counterparts. University faculty and administrators need to engage with librarians to ensure that the best decisions are being made for the long term

The emergence of competitors to the Science Citation Index and the Web of Science

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Electrochemical Journals, AIP's Scitation, Cost-Effectiveness

A review of the relative subscription costs, page & article counts of Electrochemical Society journals compared with commercial counterparts. A description of the AIP's Scitation database. The relative cost-effectiveness (normalized cost/article/Impact Factor) of society and commercial journals related to electrochemistry

Study, selection, and preparation of solid cationic conductors

Crystal chemical principles and transport theory have been used to predict structures and specific compounds which might find application as solid electrolytes in rechargeable high energy and high power density batteries operating at temperatures less than 200 C. Structures with 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional channels were synthesized and screened by nuclear magnetic resonance, dielectric loss, and conductivity. There is significant conductivity at room temperature in some of the materials but none attain a level that is comparable to beta-alumina. Microwave and fast pulse methods were developed to measure conductivity in powders and in small crystals