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.
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.
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,
[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
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.