Comparative Prices of Math Journals

27 May 97

Dear Colleagues:

This letter concerns the high price of most math journals and discusses what we mathematicians might do about it. I hope you will discuss it with your colleagues, print and post it on your bulletin boards, and inform other mathematicians of its existence.

 

CONTENTS

1. The data on prices of journals.

2. The effect of high prices on libraries.

3. What we should do.

References.

Appendix 1: A partial list of journals and their price per page.

Appendix 2: The list of journals ordered by price per page.

Appendix 3: The list ordered by price per 10,000 characters.

Appendix 4: A breakdown of the costs of the Pacific J. of Math.

Appendix 5: Excerpts from a Financial Times article on Elsevier.

1. Prices: As can be seen from Appendices 1 and 2, the list price per page of math journals can range from as high as $1.53 (Biological Cybernetics) or $1.35 (Nonlinear Analysis) to as low as $.08 per page (Indiana Math Journal) or $.07 (Annals of Probability) (I have not listed all journals and there may be still higher or lower priced journals). Three of the highest quality math journals, Inventiones, Annals of Math., and Journal of the AMS, range in price/page from $1.10 to $.15 to $.15.

Although most journals have from 3 to 4 thousand characters per page (of solid prose), they can vary from 7070 characters on a page of Biological Cybernetics to 2535 characters on a page of Monatshefte fur Mathematik. Thus a more accurate measurement of the cost of the information in a journal is price per 10,000 characters. Appendix 3 contains the list of journals ordered this way (also see [1]).

Now journals range from under 30 cents/10000char (Annals of Prob., Indiana U. Math. J., Pacific J. Math, Quarterly of Applied Math, and SIAM J. of Numerical Analysis), to over $3/10000char (Inventiones, Selecta Math, Math Annalen, Math Zeitschrift, Nonlinear Analysis, Archive for Rational Mechanics, Monatshefte fur Math, Archive for Math Logic, and Prob. Theory and Related Fields). In these terms, Inventiones, Annals of Math, and Journal of the AMS range from 306 to 47 to 39 cents per 10000 characters.

The lowest priced journals tend to be those produced by universities (e.g. Indiana, Michigan, Pacific J.) or societies (e.g. AMS, Assoc for Symbolic Logic, SIAM), and the highest priced are those published by commercial publishers (e.g. Springer, Elsevier).

It is not clear why there is such a variation (over 10 to 1) in prices. There are modest differences in quality of paper and typesetting. (A handful of commercial journals photocopy the authors submission, but these journals are only modestly cheaper.) Some journals may pay their editors, or offer some other form of recompense. Exchange rates matter. Profits, if they exist, can vary.

It is instructive to consider an example. The Pacific Journal prints about 2000 pages per year (in 10 volumes), at a cost of about $250,000. Thus a page costs about $125. They print about 1500 copies of their journal, and have a subscription list of about 1000 (at $260 per), which brings in about $260,000 so that they break even plus epsilon (see Appendix 4).

Now consider, for example, Inventiones Math, which very likely prints fewer copies than PJM. They print 2500 pages per year at a subscription rate of $2755, but I do not know their subscription rate or their costs. I would guess that Inventiones has more than 500 subscribers, but let us assume only 500, which would bring in $1,377,500. Thus, even if Inventiones' costs are 5 times as great as the Pacific Journal, they would still make a nice profit.

As you can see from the excerpts from the Financial Times about Elsevier in Appendix 5, scientific journal publishing is a "high margin business", with a "41.8% operating margin in scientific publishing".

(One more example is the American Journal of Math. They state that they printed in 1996 an average of 2012 copies and had 1352 subscribers. They charged $190 for 1367 pages. Thus their income was about $250,000 (assuming all subscribers paid the list price which may not be true). As a non-profit, one could guess that it costs them about $180 per page to publish AJM.)

We mathematicians produce the papers, serve as editors, and serve as referees, all for free (except of course for our support by our universities and employers). Then with relatively small improvement to the product, publishers turn around and sell it to our libraries at (in many cases) a very high price.

Why do we mathematicians put up with this? Prices for journals have been increasing during recent years at an average rate of 13%/year (according to Berkeley librarians), so the problem has worsened dramatically in the last few years. Most of us, including me, were mostly unaware of these striking figures, despite the fact that the Notices AMS [1] and people like Andrew Odlyzko [2]have provided us with information and thoughtful analysis.

Ignorance is not the only issue; we do not bear the costs of our decisions to support high priced journals. Our libraries do, and they have been curiously quiet about twisting our arms to be thrifty. After all, it has been estimated [2] that in 1991 American libraries spent about the same amount on math journals, $70 million, as the NSF budget for mathematics. Furthermore, we are human and like to see the fruits of our labor printed on high quality paper with elegant typesetting; it validates our hard work. Look how much care some mathematicians take in producing handsome preprints.

It is clear from the examples of journals under $.20/page that it is possible to publish high quality mathematics efficiently. The details in Appendix 4 on the Pacific Journal provide a model that others can follow, with the proviso that as the number of subscribers drops, the price per page goes up. However if a journal demands that papers be submitted in properly done TeX format so that little editing work is necessary, then even specialized journals with a small number of subscribers can publish at under 30 cents/page.

2. Libraries: I have already mentioned the estimate that US libraries spend about $70 million per year on math journals. Berkeley's math library spends about $250,000. MSRI spends about $60,000 (and trades its preprint series for more). The math institute in Guanajuato, Mexico, Centro de Investigacion en Matematicas, spends about $100,000. (Both institutes could use the extra money very well for mathematicians if their journals budgets were cut in half.)

 

Here is more detailed data for the Berkeley math library:

Year    Books           Journals        Total
94/95   $76,028         $193,086        $269,114
95/96   $78,849         $203,774        $282,623
96/97   $30,787         $243,688        $274,475
97/98                                   $274,475
98/99                                   $274,475
99/2000                                 $241,538

(There is an anomaly here in that a budget cut came late last year, so the cut was taken out of books instead of journals; thus since we will want to catch up in books, the picture for journals is even worse.) The projections for the next three years are in dollars; since inflation in journal prices has been averaging 13%/year, then if this continues Berkeley will have half the purchasing power in three years as it has now. Journals will be cut, and it makes sense to cut some of the high priced ones, even after consideration of quality.

Many libraries already cannot afford the high priced journals, especially in poorer parts of the world. We are training our PhD students who are then likely to take jobs at universities whose libraries cannot afford to take the journals to which we send our papers. This is crazy. Even if we can survive with the status quo, we owe it to the math community at large to vastly improve our efficiency in disseminating mathematics.

Remember that we do not prove theorems and sell them on the open market. Instead, society deems our work to be sufficiently important to pay us relatively high salaries to produce the work and distribute it for free use. We do the former well, but we can hardly be said to be distributing our work freely when much of the world cannot afford our journals, with the situation getting worse fast.

 

3. What is to be done:

A. I encourage all mathematicians to pledge that they will not submit papers to, nor edit for, nor referee for, high priced journals.

It is not obvious what the definition of "high priced" is. It depends somewhat on the number of paying subscribers, on the quality of the printing, on exchange rates, and other issues. It is not clear that the quality of the math should be an issue; why should journal X be able to charge more than journal Y just because we send better papers to X and then X has higher standards than Y.

I would prefer to leave the definition of "high priced" to the individual reader, except that:

surely, a journal priced at over 80 cents/page should, at the very least, openly state that its price in dollars will not rise for five years (with inflation that means a cut in constant dollars);

surely, when submitting papers we should only consider journals who will give us trustworthy information about their costs and profits, perhaps through their editors or published yearly in their journals;

even more surely, when asked to referee a paper for a high priced publisher, a task which is as onerous as any we do and is unpaid by the publisher who will me making "high margins" off our efforts, we should expect expect exceptional effort to reduce prices.

B. I encourage editorial boards of high priced journals to meet and discuss these issues. I hope they will decide that there is no future in their journal if it continues as it is now published, and decide to resign or offer to take over the journal. If the journals offers to change, I hope the editors will be tough bargainers.

C. I encourage mathematicians to talk to their library representatives and advise them that it is a good idea to cancel some of the high priced journals, thereby sending a message that unless the remaining high priced journals reform, they will be cut too. One way to do this is to choose some high priced publishers and decide to spend 10% less each year on their journals. Libraries certainly have the incentive to save scarce money, and will need little encouragement to cut these journals. If enough do so, it will be decisive.

 

What might happen if enough of us act as in A., B., and C.? I see three possible scenarios:

1. Publisher X promises to lower its prices dramatically over the next few years.

2. Publisher X realizes it can't stay in this business and gives its journals back to the mathematicians, perhaps continuing to hold on to the back volumes.

3. Publisher X is stubborn, so its journals gradually fade away.

 

I don't believe the high priced publishers will drop their prices sufficiently. I would be sorry to see many journals killed. For example, Topology was one of the first specialized journals and has published many well known papers in topology; its editors have worked diligently to keep up an excellent journal; it's published some of my papers (including my thesis, long forgotten) and I would feel as though I'd lost an old friend.

So it would be ideal if the publishers gave the journal to the editors, who with the help of their institutions and other mathematicians, formed non-profit organizations to publish the journal cheaply, much as the Pacific Journal does. In the US, there are many university presses, and they may be willing to help start up or take over journals, as in the cases of the Indiana Univ. Press, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press and others.

What is most likely, assuming enough of us focus on this issue, is that the high priced publishers will announce no price increases, or modest cuts. They will assume, probably correctly, that if they can buy time, then we mathematicians will turn our attention elsewhere. So it is wise to accomplish as much as possible now.

A closely related, crucial issue is that of copyright. The major commercial publishers are offering and negotiating costly deals with universities and consortia which include electronic versions of their journals and, presumably, eventual use of an electronic data base. (See, for example, some plans at the University of California ).

Many mathematicians will want to put their papers in electronic form on their web site. This may, in itself, never cause a problem with the publishers. But suppose that a subfield of mathematicians, say geometric topologists, want to set up a preprint server; this would contain electronically available papers in geometric topology, and an abstract and classification of each paper. A topologist could check in periodically to see what papers had been listed since the last check in, read abstracts, and then down load any interesting papers. I would find such a server very useful, but clearly it could conflict with commercial publishers' journals, electronic or otherwise.

Thus, if you give up your copyright, you might be prevented from listing your paper on any sort of preprint server, and might even be prevented from putting your paper on your web site. So I would urge you in the strongest terms to give the publisher rights to publish your paper, but retain all other rights including the right of electronic distribution and listing. You can try to do this by writing a statement retaining the copyright on the copyright form that we normally sign without thinking.

So, again, please think about these issues, discuss them with your colleagues, and act.

 

Yours,

Rob Kirby

 

References:

[1] "Survey of American Research Journals", Notices AMS, 40, (1993), 1339-1344.

[2] Odlyzko, Andrew, "Tragic loss or good riddance? The impending demise of traditional scholarly journals", Int. J. of Human-Computer Studies, 42, (1995), 71-122. Available at: http://www.research.att.com/~amo/doc/recent.html


APPENDIX 1: This is an incomplete list, assembled by hand, of most of the journals in the libraries at MSRI and UC Berkeley. More, but somewhat different, information of this kind can be found in [1]. In this list, prices are either taken from the journal itself, or in the cases where the journals do not give their price, I have used the price that UC Berkeley pays for the journal. This price is decorated with an asterisk, and varies from the list price because of additional mailing costs, exchange rates, and profit for the various agents that buy for UC Berkeley (and may get cut rates by buying in bulk). Of course this list does not contain all the relevant material about a publisher, i.e. it does not give the price for an individual which may be unusually low and subsidized by a high institutional price. I welcome corrections and additions to this list.

 
 Journal Name                    Publisher          Year Price Pages  Price/Page
                                                                    (cents/page)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACTA ARITHMETICA           Polish Acad. of Sci.      94          1172
                           Herman & Herman           95          1210
ACTA MATHEMATICA           Institut Mittag-Leffler   94   $200    613    33 c/p
                                                     95   $200    700    29
ADVANCES in APPLIED MATH   Academic Press            94   $172    506    34 c/p
                                                     95   $198    509    39
                                                     96   $228
ADVANCES in COMPUTATIONAL  Baltzer Science Pub       95   $509    825    64 c/p 
MATH                                                 96   $520    850    61
                                                     97   $---
ADVANCES in DIFFERENTIAL   Khayyam                   96   $590   1125    52 c/p
EQUATIONS                                            97   $590
ADVANCES in MATHEMATICS    Academic Press            94   $945   2207    42 c/p
                                                     95  $1153   2742    42
                                                     96  $1326   2281    58
AEQUATIONES MATHEMATICAE   Birkhauser                95   $358    640    56 c/p
                                                     96   $374    640    62
                                                     97   $470*
ALGEBRA UNIVERSALIS        Birkhauser                95   $628   1170    54 c/p
                                                     96   $760   1175    65
                                                     97   $780*
ALGEBRAS, GROUPS and       Hadronic Press            95   $150    410    37 c/p
GEOMETRIES                                           96   $150    520    29
                                                     97   $150
ALGORITHMICA               Springer, New York        95   $237   1150    21 c/p
                                                     96   $268   1320    20
                                                     97   $338
AMERICAN JOURNAL MATH      Johns Hopkins Press       94   $162   1590    10 c/p
                                                     95   $190   1644    12
                                                     96   $190   1367    14
ANALYSIS                   R. Oldenburg Verlag       95   $235*
                                                     96   $235*   415    57 c/p*
                                                     97   $225*
ANNALES de L'INSTITUT                                94          1565
FOURIER                                              95          1470
                                                     96         
ANNALES SCIENTIFIQUES      Gauthiers Villars         95   $270    760    36 c/p
L'ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEUR                            96   $396*
                                                     97   $361
ANNALS of GLOBAL ANALYSIS  Kluwer                    95   $285*
and GEOMETRY                                         96   $304    440    69 c/p
                                                     97   $438*
ANNALS of MATH             Princeton Univ. Press     94   $180   1482    12 c/p
                                                     95   $200   1200    17
                                                     96   $200   1304    15
ANNALS of MATH and         Baltzer                   95   $476*
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE                              96   $537*
                                                     97   $---
ANNALS of NUMERICAL MATH   Baltzer                   95   $245    474    52 c/p
                                                     96   $251    424    59
ANNALS of PURE and         Elsevier                  95  $1265*  1830    69 c/p*
APPLIED LOGIC                                        96  $1560*
                                                     97  $1670*
APPLIED and COMPUTATIONAL  Academic Press            95   $184    400    46 c/p
HARMONIC ANALYSIS                                    96   $212    400    53
                                                     97   $242
APPLIED CATEGORICAL        Kluwer                    95   $224    400    56 c/p
STRUCTURES                                           96   $263    450    59
                                                     97   $259
APPLIED MATH and           Elsevier                  95  $1332   2130    63 c/p
COMPUTATION                                          96  $1600   2100    76
                                                     97  $1795
APPLIED MATH LETTERS       Elsevier                  95   $470    600    78 c/p
                                                     96   $575*
                                                     97   $735
ARKIV for MATEMATIK        Inst. Mittag-Leffler      95   $---    400
                                                     96   $---    400
                                                     97   $---
ARCHIV der MATHEMATIK      Birkhauser                94   $572   1152    50 c/p
                                                     95   $598   1104    54
                                                     96          1056
ARCHIVE for MATH LOGIC     Springer                  95   $374    410    91 c/p
                                                     96   $485    400   121
                                                     97   $501
ARCHIVE for RATIONAL       Springer                  94          1200
MECHANICS and ANALYSIS                               95          1200
ARS COMBINATORIA           Charles Babbage Res. Ct.  95   $129    570    23 c/p
                                                     96   $120
                                                     97   $168*
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE    Elsevier                  95  $1465   3450    42 c/p
                                                     96  $1976   3500    56
                                                     97  $----
ASYMPTOTIC ANALYSIS        Elsevier                  95   $490    820    59 c/p
                                                     96   $538    800    67
                                                     97   $538
BEITRAGE zur ALGEBRA       Heldermann                95   $---    312     
und GEOMETRIE                                        96   $112*   425    26 c/p*
                                                     97   $113*
BULL. AUSTRALIAN MATH SOC  Austral. Math Pub. Assoc. 95   $202   1050    19 c/p
                                                     96   $231   1050    22
                                                     97   $212
BULL. de la SOCIETE                                  94           590
MATHEMATIQUE de FRANCE                               95           637
BULL. LONDON MATH SOC.     Cambridge Univ. Press     94   $266    624    43 c/p
                                                     95   $276    624    44
                                                     96   $291    672    43
BULL. of SYMBOLIC LOGIC    Assoc. of Symbolic Logic  95   $230   1870    12 c/p
& J. OF  SYMBOLIC LOGIC                              96   $260 
                                                     97   $---
CAHIERS de TOPOLOGIE et    Univ. Picardie            95    $80*   384    21 c/p*
GEOMETRIE DIFFERENTIELLE                             96    $90*
CATEGORIQUES                                         97    $--
CANADIAN JOURNAL of MATH   Univ. Toronto Press       94   $304   1340    23 c/p
                                                     95   $320   1344    24
CANADIAN MATH BULLETIN     Univ. Toronto Press       94   $152    576    26 c/p
                                                     95   $160    511    31
CHINESE ANNALS of MATH     Shanghai Sci.& Tech. Lit. 95    $--
                                                     96    $--    525
                                                     97    $--
CHINESE JOURNAL of MATH    Math Soc Rep of China     95    $60*
                           (Taiwan)                  96    $50    400    12 c/p
                                                     97    $--
COMBINATORICA              Springer                  95   $297    600    49 c/p
                                                     96   $340    600    57
                                                     97   $371*
COMBINATORICS, PROBABILITY Cambridge U. Press        95   $176    444    40 c/p
and COMPUTING                                        96   $190    444    43
                                                     97   $204*
COMMENTARII MATHEMATICI    Birkhauser                94   $208    668    31 c/p
HELVETICI                                            95   $214    673    32
COMMUNICATIONS in ALGEBRA  Marcel-Dekker             94  $1495   6494    23 c/p
                                                     95  $1675   5574    30
                                                     96  $1875   4624    40
COMMUNICATIONS in          International Press       94   $170    640    27 c/p
ANALYSIS and GEOMETRY                                95   $170    700    24
                                                     96   $170    680    25
COMMUNICATIONS in MATH     Springer                  94  $----   5160
PHYSICS                                              95  $3700   5451    68 c/p
                                                     96  $4546   6115    74
COMMUNICATIONS in PDE      Marcel Dekker             94   $795   2095    38 c/p
                                                     95   $895   2228    40
                                                     96   $995   1990    50
COMMUNICATIONS on PURE     Wiley-Interscience        94   $875   1688    51 c/p
and APPLIED MATH                                     95  $1056   1444    73
                                                     96  $1212   1400    86
COMPLEX SYSTEMS            Complex Systems Pub.      95   $295    520    57 c/p
                                                     96   $306*
                                                     97   $---
COMPOSITIO MATHEMATICA     Kluwer                    94   $882   1780    50 c/p
                                                     95  $1025   1841    55
                                                     96  $1217   1784    67
COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY   Birkhauser                95   $258    285    91 c/p
                                                     96   $324*
                                                     97   $352*
COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY     Elsevier
DIFFERENTIAL and INTEGRAL  Khayyam                   95   $530   2200    24 c/p
EQUATIONS                                            96   $590   1340    44
                                                     97   $590
DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY and  Elsevier                  95   $200*   410    49 c/p*
its APPLICATIONS                                     96   $242*   400    60*
                                                     97   $257*
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS       Elsevier                  95  $3009*  3650    82 c/p*
                                                     96  $3718*  5000    74* 
                                                     97  $4160*
DUKE MATH JOURNAL          Duke Univ. Press          94   $576   3248    18 c/p
                                                     95   $624   3269    19
                                                     96   $686
ERGODIC THEORY and         Cambridge Univ. Press     94   $339    829    41 c/p
DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS                                    95   $396   1241    32
                                                     96   $434   1360    32
EUROPEAN J. of             Cambridge Univ. Press     95   $226*   650    35 c/p*
APPLIED MATH                                         96   $248*
                                                     97   $256
EUROPEAN J. of             Academic Press            95   $380    660    58 c/p
COMBINATORICS                                        96   $510*   770    66*
                                                     97   $640
EXPERIMENTAL MATH          AK Peters                 95   $176*   350    50 c/p*
                                                     96   $150    350    43
                                                     97   $210*
EXPOSITIONES MATHEMATICAE  Spektrum                  95   $300*   480    62 c/p*
                                                     96   $287*   480    60*
                                                     97
FINITE FIELDS and APPLIC.  Academic Press            95   $---    470     
                                                     96   $175    425    41 c/p
                                                     97   $187
FORUM MATHEMATICUM         de Gruyter                95   $397*   780    51 c/p*
                                                     96   $360    770    47
                                                     97   $360
FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS and    Plenum                    94   $895    300   298 c/p
its APPLICATIONS                                     95   $945    300   315
                                                     96   $995
GEOMETRIAE DEDICATA        Kluwer                    95  $1010   1660    61 c/p
                                                     96  $1197   1700    70
                                                     97  $1280
GEOMETRIC and FUNCTIONAL   Birkhauser                94   $278    748    37 c/p
ANALYSIS                                             95   $298    965    31
                                                     96          1093
GLASGOW MATH JOURNAL       Oxford Univ. Press        96   $135    380    36 c/p
GRAPHS and COMBINATORICS   Springer, Tokyo           95   $306    400    76 c/p
                           printed in HongKong       96   $395    400    99
                                                     97   $358*?
HOKKAIDO MATH JOURNAL      Hokkaido Univ.            96           600
HOUSTON J. of MATH         Univ. of Houston          95    $95    850    11 c/p
                                                     96    $95    880    11
                                                     97   $107*
ILLINOIS JOURNAL of MATH   Univ. Illinois Press      94   $104    700    15 c/p
                                                     95   $108    754    14
                                                     96   $111    700    16
INDIANA UNIV MATH JOURNAL  Indiana Univ              94   $115   1438     8 c/p
                                                     95   $115   1370     8
                                                     96   $125
INTEGRAL EQUATIONS and     Birkhauser                95   $617*  1500    41 c/p*
OPERATOR THEORY                                      96   $700*  1500    47
                                                     97   $805*
INTERNATIONAL J. of        World Scientific          95   $348*   750    46 c/p*
ALGEBRA and COMPUTATION                              96   $383*   800    48*
                                                     97   $428*
INTERNATIONAL J. of        World Scientific          95   $260    460    57 c/p
COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY                               96   $260    510    51
 & ANALYSIS                                          97   $296*
INTERNATIONAL J. of        Gordon and Breach         95  $3400*  1300   262 c/p*
COMPUTER MATH                                        96  $3400*  1500   227
                                                     97  $3400*
INTERN. J. of GAME THEORY  Springer                  95   $306*   420    73 c/p*
                                                     96   $377    520    72
                                                     97   $457*
INTERNATIONAL J. of MATH   World Scientific          94   $390    936    41 c/p
                                                     95   $420    932    45
INTERNATIONAL J. of MATH   Taylor and Francis        95   $380*
EDUCATION                                            96   $406*
                                                     97   $440
INTERNATIONAL J. of MATH   Calcutta Math Soc. and    95   $110    825    13 c/p 
and MATH SCIENCE           Univ. of Central Florida  96   $---
INVENTIONES MATHEMATICAE   Springer                  94  $2171   2485    87 c/p
                                                     95  $2236   2470    89
                                                     96  $2755   2470   110
INVERSE PROBLEMS           American Inst. of Physics 95   $880   1300    68 c/p
                                                     96   $979   1100    89 
ISRAEL JOURNAL of MATH     Hebrew Univ.              94   $240   1320    18 c/p
                                                     95   $240   1320    18
JAPANESE J. of MATH        Math. Soc. of Japan       95   $323    490    66 c/p
                                                     96   $350*
JOURNAL of ALGEBRA         Academic Press            94  $1680   7100    24 c/p
                                                     95  $2100   7940    26
                                                     96  $2300   7840    29
J. of ALGEBRAIC GEOMETRY   Univ. Press               94   $188    750    25 c/p
                                                     95   $208    790    25
                                                     96   $230    813    28
JOURNAL of ALGORITHMS      Academic Press            94   $222   1000    22 c/p
                                                     95   $271   1150    23
                                                     96   $312   1320    24
J. of AMERICAN MATH SOC    AMS                       94   $151   1015    15 c/p
                                                     95   $158   1003    16
                                                     96   $174   1192    15
J. D'ANALYSE MATHEMATIQUE  Bar Ilan Univ.            94   $180   1044    17 c/p
                                                     95   $195   1040    19
J. of COMBINATORIAL MATH   Charles Babbage           95   $137*   
and COMB. COMPUTING        Research Group            96   $120    750    13 c/p
                                                     97   $168*
J. COMBINATORIAL THY. A    Academic Press            95   $718   1400    51 c/p
                                                     96   $797   1400    57
                                                     97   $853
J. COMBINATORIAL THY. B    Academic Press            95   $490    950    52 c/p
                                                     96   $564   1050    54
                                                     97   $603
JOURNAL of COMPLEXITY      Academic Press            94   $152    473    30 c/p
                                                     95   $175    514    34
                                                     96   $201    622    32
J. of COMPUTATIONAL and    Elsevier                  95  $1685*  3600    47 c/p*
APPLIED MATH                                         96  $2260*
                                                     97  $2900*
J. of CONVEX ANALYSIS      Heldermann Verlag         96   $148*   340    43 c/p*
                                                     97   $198*
J. of CRYPTOLOGY           Springer (printed in US)  95   $145    226    64 c/p
                                                     96   $181    266    68
                                                     97   $211*
J. of DIFFERENTIAL         Academic Press            94  $1124   3694    30 c/p
EQUATIONS                                            95  $1465   4460    33
                                                     96  $1680   4510    37
J. of DIFFERENTIAL         International Press       94   $295   1250    24 c/p
GEOMETRY                                             95   $295   1470    20
                                                     96   $355   ----
J. of DYNAMICS and         Plenum                    95   $195    640    30 c/p
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS                               96   $225    606    37
                                                     97   $255
J. of FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS  Academic Press            94  $1152   4115    28 c/p
                                                     95  $1325   4090    32
                                                     96  $1498   4340    34
J. of GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS   Krantz,  printed by AMS   94   $243    556    43 c/p
                                                     95   $255    567    44
J. of GEOMETRY             Birkhauser                95   $354*   600    59 c/p*
                                                     96   $424*   600    71
                                                     97   $352*
J. of GRAPH THEORY         Wiley-Interscience        95   $584   1100    53 c/p
                                                     96   $792   1300    61
                                                     97   $872
J. of INTEGRAL EQUATIONS   Rocky Mtn. Math. Cons.    95   $165    520    32 c/p
and APPLICATIONS                                     96   $165
                                                     97   $165
J. of KNOT THEORY and      World Scientific          93   $210    470    45 c/p
its RAMIFICATIONS                                    94   $240    580    41
                                                     95   $260    680    38
                                                     96   $312    900    35
                                                     97   $359
J. of LIE THEORY           Heldermann                95   $---    280
                                                     96   $136*   280    48 c/p*
                                                     97   $128*
J. of LOGIC & COMPUTATION  Oxford Univ. Press        96   $300*
                                                     97   $350
J. of the LONDON MATH SOC  Cambridge U. Press        94   $556   1250    44 c/p
                                                     95   $578   1250    46
                                                     96   $610   1250    48
J. of MATH ANALYSIS and    Academic Press            95  $2229   7500    30 c/p
APPLICATIONS                                         96  $2498   7500    33
                                                     97  $2725
J. of MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS American Inst. of Physics 94  $1165   6925    17 c/p
                                                     95  $1310   7180    18
                                                     96  $1440   6650    21
J. de MATHEMATIQUES PURES  Gauthier-Villars          94   $320    606    53 c/p
et APPLIQUEE                                         95   $320    578    55
                                                     96   $320    626    50
JOURNAL of NUMBER THEORY   Academic Press            94   $616   1242    49 c/p
                                                     95   $820   2042    40
                                                     96   $943   2510    37
J. of OPERATOR THEORY      Theta (Bucharest)         95   $130*   750    17 c/p*
                                                     96   $139*   750    18*
                                                     97   $139*
JOURNAL of PURE and        Elsevier                  94  $1298   2420    54 c/p
APPLIED ALGEBRA                                      95  $1495   2620    58
                                                     96  $1854   2650    70
                                                     97  $2215*
J. fur die REINE und       de Gruyter                94  $----   2640
ANGEWANDTE MATHEMATIK, (CRELLE)                      95  $----   2640
                                                     96  $2250   2640    85 c/p   
J. of THEORETICAL          Plenum                    95   $250    990    25 c/p
PROBABILITY                                          96   $311*
                                                     97   $325
K-THEORY                   Kluwer                    94   $284    640    44 c/p
                                                     95   $340    605    58
                                                     96   $418    610    68
LINEAR ALGEBRA and APPLIC. Elsevier                  95  $1998   5000    40 c/p
                                                     96  $2298   4900    47
                                                     97  $2645
MANUSCRIPTA MATHEMATICA    Springer,  photocopied    94  $1043   1800    57 c/p
                                                     95  $----   1620    
                                                     96  $1239   1620    77
                                                     97  $1289
MATHEMATICA SCANDINAVICA   Math Scand Consortium     95   $175*   640    27 c/p*
                                                     96   $195*   640    30*
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC         Johann Ambrosius Barth    95   $302*   570    53 c/p*
QUARTERLY                                            96   $295*
                                                     97   $290*
MATH MODELS and METHODS    World Scientific          95   $390*  1200    32 c/p*
in APPLIED SCIENCES                                  96   $429*  1200    36*
                                                     97   $478*
MATH PROC. CAMBRIDGE       Cambridge U. Press        94   $357   1150    31 c/p
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY                                95   $372   1150    32
                                                     96   $424   1540    28
MATH RESEARCH LETTERS      International Press       94   $130    825    16 c/p
                                                     95   $140    850    17
                                                     96   $160    860    18
                                                     97   $180
MATHEMATICS of COMPUTATION AMS                       94   $262   1713    15 c/p
                                                     95   $274   1710    16
                                                     96   $290   1790    16
MATHEMATIKA                University College London 95    $87*   450    19 c/p*
                                                     96    $88*   450    20
                                                     97    $89*
MATHEMATISCHE ANNALEN      Springer                  94  $2016   2300    87 c/p
                                                     95  $2114   2400    88
                                                     96  $2552   2430   105
MATHEMATISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT  Springer                  95  $1874   1900    99 c/p
                                                     96  $2299   2100   109
                                                     97  $2334
METHODS and APPLICATIONS   International Press       95   $200    500    40 c/p
of ANALYSIS                                          96   $200    600    33
                                                     97   $200
MICHIGAN MATH JOURNAL      Univ. of Michigan         94    $80    620    13 c/p
                                                     95    $90    625    14
                                                     96    $90    625    14
MONATSHEFTE f MATHEMATIK   Springer                  95   $569    700    81 c/p
                                                     96   $678    800    85
NONLINEAR ANALYSIS         Elsevier                  95  $1602   1440   111 c/p
                                                     96  $1980   1470   135
                                                     97  $2247
NUMERICAL ALGORITHMS       Baltzer Science Pub.      95   $580    840    69 c/p
                                                     96   $890   1250    71
                                                     97   $861*
PACIFIC JOURNAL of MATH    Pacific J Math,           94   $200   2000    10 c/p
                           Int. Press                95   $215   2370     9
                                                     96   $245   3000     8
PAN AMERICAN MATH JOURNAL  International Pub.        95   $100    400    25 c/p
PROBABILITY THEORY and     Springer                  95  $1727   1720   100 c/p
RELATED FIELDS                                       96  $2103   1730   122
                                                     97  $2039
PROC. AMERICAN MATH SOC    AMS                       94   $579   3900    15 c/p
                                                     95   $605   3910    15
                                                     96   $641   3910    16
PROC. EDINBURGH MATH SOC   Oxford Univ. Press        95   $170    550    31 c/p
                                                     96   $180    600    30
                                                     97   $212*
PROC. LONDON MATH SOC.     Univ. Press, N. Ireland   94   $626   1340    47 c/p
                                                     95   $650   1440    45
                                                     96   $682   1440    47
QUARTERLY JOURNAL of MATH  Oxford U. Press           94   $160    550    29 c/p
                                                     95   $165    520    32
                                                     96   $175    525    33
QUARTERLY of APPLIED MATH  Brown Univ.               95    $90    800    11 c/p
                                                     96   $100
                                                     97   $100
REVISTA MATEMATICA IBERO-AMERICANA                   94   $180    720    25 c/p
                                                     95   $180    726    25
                                                     96   $180    916    19
ROCKY MOUNTAIN MATH J.     Rocky Mountain Math Cons. 95   $350   1600    22 c/p
                                                     96   $350
                                                     97   $355*
SELECTA MATHEMATICA        Birkhauser                95   $---
                                                     96   $733    700   105 c/p
                                                     97   $709*
SEMIGROUP FORUM            Springer                  95   $261    800    33 c/p
                                                     96   $341*
                                                     97   $307
SIAM J. on APPLIED MATH    SIAM                      94   $242   1810    13 c/p
                                                     95   $262   1800    14
                                                     96   $283   1820    15
STUDIES in APPLIED MATH    Blackwell                 95   $370    900    41 c/p
                                                     96   $407    800    50
                                                     97   $440
TRANS. AMERICAN MATH SOC.  AMS                       94   $938   5400    17 c/p
                                                     95   $980   5030    19
                                                     96  $1039   5120    20
TOPOLOGY                   Pergamon                  92   $600    902    67 c/p
                                                     93   $665    905    73
   "                       Elsevier                  94   $580    798    73     
                                                     95   $701    999    70     
                                                     96   $896   1106    81     
                                                     97  $1146   
TOPOLOGY and its APPLIC.   Elsevier                  94  $1112   1800    62 c/p
                                                     95  $1345   2100    64 
                                                     96  $1643   2100    78
                                                     97  $1780 
TRANSFORMATION GROUPS      Birkhauser                96   $185    400    46 c/p
                                                     97   $212*
ZEITSCHRIFT fur ANALYSIS   Heldermann                95   $270*   940    29 c/p*
und ANWENDUNGEN                                      96   $311*  1050    30
                                                     97   $304*

APPENDIX 2: Journals listed in descending order by price/page.

Recall that an asterisk next to a price means that price/page was computed using the price that UC Berkeley pays for the journal, not the list price (which is not given in the journal).

Journals listed in decreasing order by price in cents/page, c/p:

153 c/p

BIOLOGICAL CYBERNETICS

Springer

135 c/p

NONLINEAR ANALYSIS

Elsevier

122 c/p

PROBABILITY THEORY and RELATED FIELDS

Springer

121

ARCHIVE for MATH LOGIC

Springer

110 c/p

INVENTIONES MATHEMATICAE

Springer

109

MATHEMATISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT

Springer

105

MATHEMATISCHE ANNALEN

Springer

105

SELECTA MATHEMATICA

Birkhauser

99 c/p

GRAPHS and COMBINATORICS

Springer

91

COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY

Birkhauser

89 c/p

INVERSE PROBLEMS

Institute of Physics

86

COMMUNICATIONS PURE & APPLIED MATH

Wiley-Interscience

85

JOURNAL REINE ANGEWANDTE MATHEMATIK

de Gruyter

85

MONATSHEFTE fur MATHEMATIK

Springer

81

TOPOLOGY

Elsevier

78 c/p

APPLIED MATH LETTERS

Elsevier

78

TOPOLOGY and its APPLICATIONS

Elsevier

77

MANUSCRIPTA MATHEMATICA

Springer

76

APPLIED MATH and COMPUTATION

Elsevier

74

COMMUNICATIONS in MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS

Springer

74*

DISCRETE MATH

Elsevier

72

INTERNATIONAL J. of GAME THEORY

Springer

71

J. of GEOMETRY

Birkhauser

71

NUMERICAL ALGORITHMS

Baltzer

70

GEOMETRIAE DEDICATA

Kluwer

70

JOURNAL of PURE and APPLIED ALGEBRA

Elsevier

70

ORDER

Kluwer

69 c/p

ANNALS of GLOBAL ANALYSIS and GEOMETRY

Kluwer

69*

ANNALS of PURE and APPLIED LOGIC

Elsevier

68

J. of CRYPTOLOGY

Springer

68

K-THEORY

Kluwer

67

ASYMPTOTIC ANALYSIS

Elsevier

67

COMPOSITIO MATHEMATICA

Kluwer

66*

EUROPEAN J. of COMBINATORICS

Academic Press

66

JAPANESE J. of MATH

Math. Soc. of Japan

65

ALGEBRA UNIVERSALIS

Birkhauser

62

AEQUATIONES MATHEMATICAE

Birkhauser

62

COMPUTERS & MATH with APPLICATIONS

Elsevier

61

ADVANCES in COMPUTATIONAL MATH

Baltzer

61

J. of GRAPH THEORY

Wiley-Interscience

60*

DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY and its APPLIC.

Elsevier

60*

EXPOSITIONES MATHEMATICAE

Spektrum

59 c/p

ANNALS of NUMERICAL MATH

Baltzer

59

APPLIED CATEGORICAL STRUCTURES

Kluwer

58

ADVANCES in MATHEMATICS

Academic Press

57*

ANALYSIS

R. Oldenburg Verlag

57

COMBINATORICA

Springer

57

COMPLEX SYSTEMS

Complex Systems Pub.

57

J. of COMBINATORIAL THEORY A

Academic Press

56

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Elsevier

54

ARCHIV der MATHEMATIK

Birkhauser

54

J. of COMBINATORIAL THEORY B

Academic Press

53

APPLIED and COMP. HARMONIC ANALYSIS

Academic Press

53*

MATHEMATICAL LOGIC QUARTERLY

Johann Ambrosius Barth

53

THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE

Elsevier

52

ADVANCES in DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS

Khayyam

51

INT. J. COMP. GEOMETRY & ANALYSIS

World Scientific

50

COMMUNICATIONS in PDE

Marcel Dekker

50

J. of COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS

Academic Press

50

JOURNAL MATH PURES et APPLIQUEES

Gauthier-Villars

50

STUDIES in APPLIED MATH

Blackwell

48*

INTERN. J. of ALGEBRA and COMPUTATION

World Scientific

48*

J. of LIE THEORY

Heldermann

48

JOURNAL of the LONDON MATH SOCIETY

Cambridge U. Press

47

FORUM MATHEMATICUM

de Gruyter

47

INTEGRAL EQUATIONS and OPERATOR THEORY

Birkhauser

47*

J. of COMPUTATIONAL and APPLIED MATH

Elsevier

47

PROCEEDINGS LONDON MATH SOC.

Univ. Press, N. Ireland

46

TRANSFORMATION GROUPS

Birkhauser

45

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of MATH

World Scientific

44

DIFFERENTIAL and INTEGRAL EQUATIONS

Khayyam

44

JOURNAL of GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Krantz, printed by AMS

43

BULLETIN LONDON MATH SOCIETY

Cambridge Univ. Press

43

COMBINATORICS, PROBABILITY & COMPUTING

Cambridge Univ. Press

43

EXPERIMENTAL MATH

AK Peters

43*

J. of CONVEX ANALYSIS

Heldermann Verlag

41

FINITE FIELDS and APPLICATIONS

Academic Press

40

COMMUNICATIONS in ALGEBRA

Marcel-Dekker (photo)

40

LINEAR ALGEBRA and APPLICATIONS

Elsevier

39 c/p

ADVANCES in APPLIED MATH

Academic Press

37

JOURNAL of DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS

Academic Press

37

JOURNAL of NUMBER THEORY

Academic Press

37

J. of DYNAMICS and DIFF. EQUATIONS

Plenum

36

ANNALES SCIENT L'ECOLE NORM SUPERIEUR

Gauthiers Villars

36

GLASGOW MATH JOURNAL

Oxford Univ. Press

36*

MATH MODELS and METHODS in APPLIED SCI

World Scientific

35*

EUROPEAN J. of APPLIED MATH

Cambridge Univ. Press

35

J. of KNOT THEORY and RAMIFICATIONS

World Scientific

34

JOURNAL of FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS

Academic Press

34

SIAM J. on DISCRETE MATHEMATICS

SIAM

33

J. of MATH ANALYSIS and APPLICATIONS

Academic Press

33

QUARTERLY JOURNAL of MATH

Oxford U. Press

33

METHODS and APPLICATIONS of ANALYSIS

International Press

33

SEMIGROUP FORUM

Springer

32

COMMENTARII MATHEMATICI HELVETICI

Birkhauser

32

ERGODIC THEORY & DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS

Cambridge Univ. Press

32

JOURNAL of COMPLEXITY

Academic Press

32

J. of INTEGRAL EQUATIONS and APPLIC.

Rocky Mtn. Math Cons.

31

CANADIAN MATH BULLETIN

Univ. Toronto Press

31

GEOMETRIC and FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS

Birkhauser

30*

MATHEMATICA SCANDINAVICA

Math Scand Consortium

30

PROC. EDINBURGH MATH SOCIETY

Oxford Univ. Press

30

ZEITSCHRIFT fur ANALYSIS & ANWENDUNGEN

Heldermann

29 c/p

ACTA MATHEMATICA

Institut Mittag-Leffler

29

ALGEBRAS, GROUPS and GEOMETRIES

Hadronic Press

29

JOURNAL of ALGEBRA

Academic Press

28

JOURNAL of ALGEBRAIC GEOMETRY

University Press

28

MATH PROCEEDINGS CAMBRIDGE PHIL SOC.

Camb. U. Press

26*

BEITRAGE zur ALGEBRA und GEOMETRIE

Heldermann

25

COMMUNICATIONS in ANALYSIS and GEOMETRY

International Press

25

J. of THEORETICAL PROBABILITY

Plenum

25

PAN AMERICAN MATH JOURNAL

International Pub.

24

CANADIAN JOURNAL MATH

Univ. Toronto Press

24

JOURNAL of ALGORITHMS

Academic Press

24

SIAM J. on OPTIMIZATION

SIAM

23

ARS COMBINATORIA

Charles Babbage Res. Cen.

22

BULL. AUSTRALIAN MATH SOCIETY

Australian Math Pub.

22

ROCKY MOUNTAIN MATH JOURNAL

Rocky Mtn Math Cons.

22

SIAM J. on MATH ANALYSIS

SIAM

21*

CAHIERS de TOP et GEOMETRIE DIFF.

Univ. Picardie

21

JOURNAL of MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS

Amer. Inst. of Physics

20

ALGORITHMICA

Springer

20

MATHEMATIKA

University College London

20

TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN MATH SOC.

AMS

20

JOURNAL of DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY

International Press

19 c/p

DUKE MATH JOURNAL

Duke Univ. Press

19

REVISTA MATEMATICA IBERO-AMERICANA

19

JOURNAL D'ANALYSE MATH

Bar Ilan U. Magnes Press

19

SIAM J. MATRIX ANALYSIS & APPLICATIONS

SIAM

18

ISRAEL JOURNAL of MATH

Hebrew Univ. Magnes Press

18*

J. of OPERATOR THEORY

Theta (Bucharest)

18

MATH RESEARCH LETTERS

International Press

16

ILLINOIS JOURNAL of MATH

Univ. Illinois Press

16

PROCEEDINGS AMERICAN MATH SOC

AMS

16

MATHEMATICS of COMPUTATION

AMS

15

ANNALS of MATH

Johns Hopkins P.

15

JOURNAL of AMERICAN MATH SOC

AMS

15

SIAM JOURNAL on APPLIED MATH

SIAM

14

AMERICAN JOURNAL MATH

Johns Hopkins Press

14

MICHIGAN MATH JOURNAL

Univ. of Michigan

13

INTER. J. of MATH and MATH SCIENCES

Calcutta Math Soc.

13

J. of COMB. MATH and COMB. COMPUTING

Charles Babbage Res.

12

BULL and J. of SYMBOLIC LOGIC

Assoc. Symbolic Logic

12

CHINESE JOURNAL of MATH

Math Soc Rep of China

12

SIAM J. on NUMERICAL ANALYSIS

SIAM

11

HOUSTON J. of MATH

Univ. of Houston

11

QUARTERLY of APPLIED MATH

Brown Univ.

8 c/p

INDIANA UNIV MATH JOURNAL

Indiana Univ.

8

PACIFIC JOURNAL of MATH

Pacific J Math

7

ANNALS of PROBABILITY

Inst. of Math. Statistics


APPENDIX 3: This is an ordered list of journals, in increasing order by cost per 10,000 characters. This was compiled by taking the most recent issue of the journal, choosing two representative pages which were closest to all prose, and then counting the number of lines and multiplying by the number of characters in a complete line. In other words, the figure in the next to last column is roughly the maximum number of characters which could be put on a typical page if there were no indentations or spaces between paragraphs.

In "Survey of American Research Journals, Notices AMS, 40 (1993), 1339-44", a similar task was carried out for journals published in the US. That survey was done with more checking, including checking with the publisher, than the one below.

Some of the journals below, including Comm. in Algebra, Comm. in PDE, Integral Equations and Operator Theory, Intern. J. of Math and Math Sciences, and Manuscripta Mathematica, appear to be published from the authors copy, and therefore the characters per page vary according to the authors submission. In this case a rough average over several papers was used.

The first column lists the cost in cents per 10,000 characters. Following the journal and publisher, there is a column with the total number of characters per page, and then the cost per page in cents, carried over from Appendices 1 and 2.

  
472     FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS and    Plenum               6680   315 
        its APPLICATIONS  

357     PROBABILITY THEORY and     Springer             3420   122 
        RELATED FIELDS                                    

348     ARCHIVE for MATH LOGIC     Springer             3475   121

335     MONATSHEFTE fur MATHEMATIK Springer             2535    85

320     ARCHIVE for RATIONAL       Springer             3820   122 
        MECHANICS and ANALYSIS     

319     NONLINEAR ANALYSIS         Elsevier             4230   135

318     MATHEMATISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT  Springer             3430   109

311     MATHEMATISCHE ANNALEN      Springer             3375   105

309     SELECTA MATHEMATICA        Birkhauser           3400   105

306     INVENTIONES MATHEMATICAE   Springer             3600   110

292     COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY   Birkhauser           3120    91

276     COMMUNICATIONS on PURE     Wiley-Interscience   3120    86 
        and APPLIED MATH   

272     GRAPHS and COMBINATORICS   Springer, Tokyo      3635    99

238     APPLIED MATH & COMPUTATION Elsevier             3190    76

216     BIOLOGICAL CYBERNETICS     Springer             7070   153

209     TOPOLOGY and its APPLIC.   Elsevier             3740    78

209     J. of GEOMETRY             Birkhauser           3400    71

201     GEOMETRIAE DEDICATA        Kluwer               3485    70

201     ALGEBRA UNIVERSALIS        Birkhauser           3240    65

200     DISCRETE MATHEMATICS       Elsevier             3700    74

199     MANUSCRIPTA MATHEMATICA    Springer (photocop)  3870    77

198     INTERN. J. of GAME THEORY  Springer             3645    72

196     ANNALS of PURE and         Elsevier             3525    69 
        APPLIED LOGIC 

195     J. fur die REINE und       de Gruyter           4360    85 
        ANGEWANDTE MATHEMATIK

194     ORDER                      Kluwer               3600    70

194     JOURNAL of PURE and        Elsevier             3610    70   
        APPLIED ALGEBRA   

194     JAPANESE J. of MATH        Math. Soc. of Japan  3400    66

193     INVERSE PROBLEMS           Institute of Physics 4600    89

190     COMPOSITIO MATHEMATICA     Kluwer               3525    67

188     NUMERICAL ALGORITHMS       Baltzer Science Pub. 3700    71

188     K-THEORY                   Kluwer               3610    68

187     J. COMBINATORIAL THY. A    Academic Press       3050    57

185     COMMUNICATIONS in MATH     Springer             4000    74 
        PHYSICS   

184     TOPOLOGY                   Elsevier             4410    81

184     AEQUATIONES MATHEMATICAE   Birkhauser           3360    62

182     ADVANCES in MATHEMATICS    Academic Press       3182    58

181     ANNALS of GLOBAL ANALYSIS  Kluwer               3820    69 
        and GEOMETRY    

174     APPLIED CATEGORICAL        Kluwer               3400    59 
        STRUCTURES     

172     J. of CRYPTOLOGY           Springer             3950    68

170     J. COMBINATORIAL THY. B    Academic Press       3180    54

167     COMMUNICATIONS in PDE      Marcel Dekker        3000    50

165     ANNALS of NUMERICAL MATH   Baltzer              3565    59

164     ADV. COMPUTATIONAL MATH    Baltzer Science Pub  3725    61

163     COMPLEX SYSTEMS            Complex Systems Pub. 3500    57

161     APPLIED MATH LETTERS       Elsevier             4845    78

155     INTEGRAL EQUATIONS and     Birkhauser           3040    47   
        OPERATOR THEORY 

155     EUROPEAN J. of             Academic Press       4265    66 
        COMBINATORICS

154     COMBINATORICA              Springer             3690    57

149     STUDIES in APPLIED MATH    Blackwell            3355    50

147     ANALYSIS                   R. Oldenburg Verlag  3870    57

144     DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY and  Elsevier             4180    60 
        its APPLICATIONS    

144     ADV. DIFFERENTIAL EQUATS.  Khayyam              3600    52

141     TRANSFORMATION GROUPS      Birkhauser           3255    46

141     ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE    Elsevier             3960    56

140     THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCI.  Elsevier             3780    53

140     J. of GRAPH THEORY         Wiley-Interscience   4360    61

138     INTERNATIONAL J. of        World Scientific     3700    51    
        COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY   
        & ANALYSIS 

138     ASYMPTOTIC ANALYSIS        Elsevier             4850    67

135     MATHEMATICAL LOGIC         Johann Ambro. Barth  3915    53   
        QUARTERLY    

135     ARCHIV der MATHEMATIK      Birkhauser           4000    54

134     COMPUTERS & MATH APPLIC.   Elsevier             4640    62

133     DIFFERENTIAL and INTEGRAL  Khayyam              3320    44 
        EQUATIONS 

132     COMMUNICATIONS in ALGEBRA  Marcel-Dekker        3040    40

131     J. de MATHEMATIQUES PURES  Gauthier-Villars     3825    50 
        et APPLIQUEE

131     FINITE FIELDS and APPLIC.  Academic Press       3140    41

130     INTERNATIONAL J. of        World Scientific     3700    48    
        ALGEBRA and COMPUTATION      

130     EXPOSITIONES MATHEMATICAE  Spektrum             4610    60

130     ADVANCES in APPLIED MATH   Academic Press       2980    39

129     INTERNATIONAL J. of MATH   World Scientific     3475    45

129     FORUM MATHEMATICUM         de Gruyter           3650    47

128     J. of LIE THEORY           Heldermann           3760    48

120     JOURNAL of NUMBER THEORY   Academic Press       3255    33

119     PROC. LONDON MATH SOC.     U. Press, N. Ireland 3950    47

118     J. of the LONDON MATH SOC  Cambridge U. Press   4065    48

115     LINEAR ALGEBRA and APPLIC. Elsevier             4075    47

114     J. of DYNAMICS and         Plenum               3235    37   
        DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS      

112     ALGEBRAS, GROUPS & GEOMS.  Hadronic Press       2585    29

111     J. of INTEGRAL EQUATIONS   Rocky Mtn. Cons.     2880    32 
        and APPLICATIONS   

111     COMBINATORICS, PROBABILITY Cambridge U. Press   3890    43 
        and COMPUTING   

110     QUARTERLY JOURNAL of MATH  Oxford U. Press      3010    33

109     J. of DIFFERENTIAL         Academic Press       3400    37    
        EQUATIONS 

108     J. of COMPUTATIONAL and    Elsevier             4355    47  
        APPLIED MATH    

107     BULL. LONDON MATH SOC.     Cambridge U. Press   4020    43

104     J. of FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS  Academic Press       3270    34

104     GEOMETRIC and FUNCTIONAL   Birkhauser           3000    31 
        ANALYSIS

103     J. of CONVEX ANALYSIS      Heldermann Verlag    4185    43

103     CANADIAN MATH BULLETIN     Univ. Toronto Press  3870    31

102     EXPERIMENTAL MATH          AK Peters            4225    43

101     J. of MATH ANALYSIS and    Academic Press       3255    33  
        APPLICATIONS  

100     COMMENTARII MATHEMATICI    Birkhauser           3200    32 
        HELVETICI    

 98     JOURNAL of COMPLEXITY      Academic Press       3270    32

 97     MATH MODELS and METHODS    World Scientific     3700    36    
        in APPLIED SCIENCES                                

 97     J. of GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS   Krantz,  pr. by AMS  4460    44

 93     MATHEMATICA SCANDINAVICA   Math Scand. Cons.    3240    30

 93     APPLIED and COMPUTATIONAL  Academic Press       5725    53 
        HARMONIC ANALYSIS  

 93     ANNALES SCIENTIFIQUES      Gauthiers Villars    3870    36 
        L'ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEUR 

 92     J. of ALGEBRAIC GEOMETRY   Univ. Press          3040    28

 91     GLASGOW MATH JOURNAL       Oxford Univ. Press   3955    36

 90     JOURNAL of ALGEBRA         Academic Press       3225    29

 89     SEMIGROUP FORUM            Springer             3725    33

 89     ACTA MATHEMATICA           Inst Mittag-Leffler  3270    29

 86     COMMUNICATIONS in          International Press  2920    25 
        ANALYSIS and GEOMETRY  

 84     EUROPEAN J. of             Cambridge U. Press   4185    35 
        APPLIED MATH     

 83     ROCKY MOUNTAIN MATH J.     Rocky Mt. Math Cons. 2660    22

 81     SIAM J. on DISCRETE MATH   SIAM                 4200    34

 81     J. COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS   Academic Press       6160    50

 80     J. of KNOT THEORY and      World Scientific     4380    35  
        its RAMIFICATIONS  

 79     J. of THEORETICAL          Plenum               3180    25 
        PROBABILITY 

 79     ERGODIC THEORY and         Cambridge U. Press   4050    32 
        DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS

 77     PROC. EDINBURGH MATH SOC   Oxford Univ. Press   3870    30

 77     METHODS and APPLICATIONS   International Press  4265    33    
        of ANALYSIS    

 75     ZEITSCHRIFT fur ANALYSIS   Heldermann           4000    30   
        und ANWENDUNGEN   

 75     PAN AMERICAN MATH JOURNAL  International Pub.   3310    25

 74     JOURNAL of ALGORITHMS      Academic Press       3255    24

 73     MATH PROC. CAMBRIDGE       Cambridge U. Press   3820    28  
        PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY  

 72     J. DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY   International Press  2760    20

 72     CAHIERS de TOPOLOGIE et    Univ. Picardie       2900    21
        GEOMETRIE DIFF CATEGORIQUE

 68     ARS COMBINATORIA           Ch. Babbage Res. Ct. 3375    23

 67     BULL. AUSTRALIAN MATH SOC  Aust Math Pub Assoc. 3270    22

 66     CANADIAN JOURNAL of MATH   Univ. Toronto Press  3610    24

 64     BEITRAGE zur ALGEBRA       Heldermann           4050    26 
        und GEOMETRIE 

 63     ISRAEL JOURNAL of MATH     Hebrew Univ.         2835    18

 59     J. D'ANALYSE MATHEMATIQUE  Bar Ilan Univ.       3250    19

 57     SIAM J. on OPTIMIZATION    SIAM                 4200    24

 57     J. of OPERATOR THEORY      Theta (Bucharest)    2965    17

 53     DUKE MATH JOURNAL          Duke Univ. Press     3565    19

 52     SIAM J. on MATH ANALYSIS   SIAM                 4200    22

 52     MATH RESEARCH LETTERS      International Press  3440    18

 52     ALGORITHMICA               Springer, New York   3820    20

 51     MATHEMATIKA                Univ. College London 3890    20

 48     TRANS. AMERICAN MATH SOC.  AMS                  4130    20

 47     ANNALS of MATH             Princeton U. Press   3190    15

 45     SIAM J. MATRIX ANALY APP   SIAM                 4200    19

 45     ILLINOIS JOURNAL of MATH   Univ. Illinois Press 3770    16

 41     PROC. AMERICAN MATH SOC    AMS                  3925    16

 41     MATHEMATICS of COMPUTATION AMS                  3890    16

 41     J. of MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS Amer. Inst. Physics  5150    21

 41     J. of COMBINATORIAL MATH   Charles Babbage      3190    13    
        and COMB. COMPUTING        Research Group      

 41     HOUSTON J. of MATH         Univ. of Houston     2700    11

 39     MICHIGAN MATH JOURNAL      Univ. of Michigan    3600    14

 39     J. of AMERICAN MATH SOC    AMS                  3890    15

 39     AMERICAN JOURNAL MATH      Johns Hopkins Press  3600    14

 37     CHINESE JOURNAL of MATH    Math Soc Rep China   3275    12

 34     SIAM J. on APPLIED MATH    SIAM                 4350    15

 33     BULL. of SYMBOLIC LOGIC    Assoc. of Sym Logic  3670    12 
        & J. OF  SYMBOLIC LOGIC                         

 32     INTERNATIONAL J. of MATH   Calcutta Math Soc. & 4000    13 
        and MATH SCIENCE           U. Central Florida

 29     SIAM J. NUMERICAL ANALYSIS SIAM                 4200    12

 28     QUARTERLY of APPLIED MATH  Brown Univ.          3870    11

 25     PACIFIC JOURNAL of MATH    Pacific J Math,      3150     8

 23     INDIANA UNIV MATH JOURNAL  Indiana Univ         3475     8

 20     ANNALS of PROBABILITY      Inst. of Math. Stat. 3500     7


APPENDIX 4. Cost breakdown for the Pacific Journal of Math.

This is a description of the costs for producing the Pacific Journal of Mathematics. It is an independent California non-profit corporation, with offices at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Irvine.

PJM normally publishes 2000 pages per year at the following prices:

1994=$200
1995=$215
1996=$245
1997=$260
1998=$275

However during 1995-96, PJM published 5400 pages (instead of 4000), but lost money. Also, during 1997, it expects to publish an extra 300 page issue honoring Olga Taussky-Todd. Thus, the cost per page was 8.5 cents in 1995-96, the cost is 11.3 cents/page in 1996-97, and the expected cost in 1998-2000 is 13.7 cents/page.

PJM will introduce an electronic version in March 1997 which will be free for the 1997 subscription year and, thereafter, will be available from any computer that is on a university network whose library subscribes to PJM.

The anticipated breakdown of the operation of PJM for the 1997-2000 time period is as follows. (Prices were about 6% cheaper for the 1994-1997 years).

Cost to prepare a manuscript for printing, per issue:
 
Submitted in TeX, LaTeX, AMS-LaTeX: $29.67/page
Submitted in other forms:           $35.60/page
 
(This is done by International Press.) Currently,
approximately 80% of the pages are submitted in 
the first category.                                             $6220

The average cost per issue for artwork is                        $200 

Printing and binding 1500 copies of a 200 page issue:           $6050

Preparing each issue for mailing (involves polybagging 
for US and duropack for international).                          $430

Reprints per issue (100 given to each author)                    $600

Total postage for each issue,
including correspondence with authors
and mailing of reprints                                         $4000

Preparing and maintaining an electronic version
(to be introduced for the March 1997 issue)                     $1000

Annual salaries plus benefits to support staff
for editing, corresponding with authors, etc:
$56,000/year.                                                   $5600

Accounting, legal fees, insurance, payroll taxes:         
$8000/year.                                                      $800

                                                        Total $24,900

The marginal cost per page per year appears to be

($6050 + 430 + 4000)/(1500x200) = 3.5 cents/page.

 

The PJM subscription base is almost 1000. At $275 per subscription, (beginning in 1998), this will almost provide $275,000 to offset the cost of producing 10 issues per year of $249,000. (The current profit is offsetting losses during the past two years when PJM printed many more pages, and will pay for anticipated "extra issues" at a cost of $7,000 per issue.)

PJM prints about 1500 copies. Most of the extra 500 go to the sponsoring institutions of PJM (who buy them at a cheap rate), and their libraries trade them with a consortium of over 200 other modestly priced journals for copies of their journals. This modest income offsets the fact that a few employees of PJM get free office space and use of equipment and editors get free secretarial service at some of the sponsoring institutions. PJM pays the salaries and benefits of the staff who put out the journal; only the mathematicians, and the secretaries for the editors, are supported by the sponsoring institutions.

Not every journal will print 1500 copies and have a subscription base of 1000. Suppose a hypothetical journal prints 2000 pages per year as PJM does, but prints n copies and has a subscription base of n subscribers. Suppose its fixed costs are the same as PJM, namely $144,200, and the marginal cost per page (per year) is also the same, namely 3.5cents/page (this is not quite true, for printing costs/page will rise as the printing run decreases). Then our hypothetical journal must charge ($144,200+70n)/2000n cents/page. When n=1000, the charge for a years subscription is 10.7 cents/page (less than PJM because they print 1500 copies, not 1000). When n = 500, we get 17.9 cents/page. For n = 300, we get 27.5 cents/page. It is clear that unless fixed costs can be brought down, it greatly helps in lowering the price per page to have a larger subscription base.

Thanks to Ron Stern, President of PJM, for providing the data above (responsibility for the arithmetic is mine).

 


APPENDIX 5: Article on Elsevier:

An article from the Financial Times (13 March, 1997, page 24, Companies and Finance section) is titled:

"Reed Elsevier forward 10%. Anglo-Dutch group improves mainly through organic growth."

and is authored by Raymond Snoddy. Excerpts follow:

Reed Elsevier, the Anglo-Dutch information and media group, yesterday announced a rise of nearly 10% in pre-tax profits to L806million, largely through organic growth.

Mr Nigel Stapleton, joint chairman, yesterday said the results "were not spectacular, only bloody good". . . .

Operating profits at continuing operations rose by more than 12% to L856m on sales of L3.38bn. Margins improved by 1.6 percentage points to 25.3%, including a 41.8% operating margin in scientific publishing.

Scientific produced a 9% rise in operating profit to L231m and professional was up 21% to L274m. Business publishing rose 7% to L273m, with consumer publishing up 13% to L78m. . .

The policy of investing to create huge electronic science data bases--its Science Direct project--has led one analyst, Mr Richard Dale of Salomon Brothers, to change his recommendation away from "sell". Mr Dale was worried about the costs of transition to the electronic world and the threat of competition from the Internet. He now thinks that it is the larger participants who will benefit from the move to electronic publishing.

 ***Comment (by Snoddy)

It does not matter very much whether the correct word to describe yesterday's results is solid, spectacular or just good. The big question that has been hanging over Reed, and one which gave it pause for thought, is whether its high margin businesses, such as scientific journal publishing, are simply going to melt when faced with Internet competition. The answer is already starting to become clear. It is that brands and publishing skills remain important, and that as long as Reed does invest in electronic publishing alongside the traditional paper its market dominance will be difficult to dislodge. Reed has a search engine that can interrogate 1bn documents in eight seconds and 2m extra documents are being added every day. This will be difficult to replicate. It helps to make Reed worth its 25-30% premium to the market, on pre-tax profits forecasts of L865m for this year and L960m next.

My (Kirby) remarks: The phrase that jumps out at me is in the last paragraph, "its high margin businesses, such as scientific journal publishing". It is not so clear how to interpret the various figures and percentages in the news article itself, for they are written to boost Reed-Elsevier's image and stock price, and are susceptible to much manipulation; even so they give the impression that profits are high in scientific publication. But the phrase in the "Comment" that scientific journal publishing is a high margin business, means to me that this is the part of their business where profits are high. And from the prices of math journals, it seems likely that we are not an exception among the sciences.