AGAINST THE GRAIN
v.11 # 1 February 1999 © Katina Strauch

Annual Report Issue

	Rumors	1
	Deadlines	6
	From Your Editor	6
	Letters to the Editor	6
	Mergers and Acquisitions—1998 M&A: The Year in Review by Linda Defendeifer — Mergers & Acquisitions’ final 1998 issue described m&a activity in general as “at an all-time high.” In Linda’s incredibly thorough review of activity in 1998, hold onto your ... er ... pocketbook.	1
	Annual review – UK 1998 by Martin White — A review of some of the events and issues of 1998 in the UK	19
	“The Future Should Be Cute”? by Karen Hunter — What does the future look like from a large commercial publisher’s perspective?	21
	Scholarly societies: Pricing models for online journals Katharine E Duff presents a representative snapshot of the current pricing models used in online societal publishing.	23
	The de-commercialisation of scientific publishing— Some thoughts Against the Grain by Edwin Shelock and Igor V. Svitanko — There is a growing recognition by libraries both in Europe and the USA that the commercialisation of science journal publishing is affecting the freedom of the system of communication ...	24
	The subscription agent’s view of the world in 1998 by Dan Tonkery — As we close 1998, the year has been one of challenges and of opportunities and certainly Internet mania. Much of the Internet growth will continue in 1999 and beyond.	29
	1998 from a Book Vendor’s Perspective by Daniel P. Halloran — It was the year that the Web matured into a true merchandising channel for reaching the consumer market. And the first commercially viable, hand-held electronic books came to market.	30
	Op Ed — Opinions and Editorials Lloyd Rich has a rebuttal to Robert Franklin’s rebuttal of the “Protection of Literary Titles? article that appeared in the September ATG (pp,56-57, 60). Why don’t we have some comment on other articles as well!	31
	ATG Annual Report Issue Survey Results by Barry and Judy Lee —	32
	Judy Webster Remembered - Pt II We continue here to remember our friend and colleague, Judy Webster.	60
	Back Talk Out of the Box and/or Off the Wall — Says Tony Ferguson: “We need to cultivate within ourselves and within our organizations a tolerance for off-the-wall thinking so that out-of-the-box solutions can be aired and adopted when appropriate.”	86
	Eamon Fennessy President, The Copyright Group	33
Edited by Barbara Dean Bdean@co.arlington.va.us
	Barbara Meyers President, Meyers Consulting Services	22
	Robert (Bob) Bovenschulte Director, Publications Division — American Chemical Society	34
	Ann Lowry Assistant Director and Journals Manager — University of Illinois Press in Champaign	61
	From the Reference Desk by Tom Gilson —	36
	Book Reviews In this issue, Ellen Duranceau reviewsThe Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.	42
	TestDriving CD-ROMs Reviews of CD-ROM products — Twayne’s United States Authors on CD-ROM, and Learn Italian Now!	44
Edited by Bryan Carson, Bruce Strauch and Jack Montgomery
	Legally Speaking This month Troy Johnson talks about How Recent Litigation Has Impacted the West Publishing Group and the Entire Legal Publishing Industry — The legal community in the United States is dependent on published information to be able to do what it is designed to do. Lawyers on a daily basis need access to the information, cases, and statutes that are created by the legal publishing industry.	47
	Cases of Note Tasini v. The New York Times	51
	Copyright Questions and Answers A regular column in which Laura Gasaway answers all kinds of nitty-gritty questions.	53
	Book Pricing Update by Bill Smith — Publishing Mergers & Acquisitions: 1998 in Review	54
	Bestsellers for 1998 Françoise Crowell and Bob Nardini have sent us a general bestseller list this time, to cap the year.	55
	Issues in Vendor-Library Relations Barry Fast gives us a small memoriam of Judy Webster and then turns to The Price of Fame: Amazon.com as a Reliable Book Cost Resource	58
	Something About Books by Jack Walsdorf — Bibliomysteries	59
	sotto voce Wherein the author (Bob Schatz) continues his quest for truth — Distance Learning	62
	Inside Pandora’s Box — Consortia: What Do They Really Hold for the Future? Ultimately, says John Secor, consortia will achieve their real potential when vendors are brought in as partners to assist in envisioning the broad strategies that will give consortia far more value than when discount or even cooperative collection development are the driving forces.	63
	And They Were There Reports of Meetings — The 1998 Charleston Conference and Licensing Electronic Resources to Libraries—An ARL Workshop for Publishers.	66
	Biz of Acq Libraries, Outsourcing, and Integrated Library Systems: Peaceful Coexistence, or Contradiction in Terms? Shelley Neville provides candid explanations of the challenges that face ILS vendors as they attempt to develop even better tools for acquisitions work.	68
	Bet You Missed It Welcome to Pamela Rose who is now editing Bet You Missed It.	71
	International Dateline Eamon Fennessy tells us about The British Library and Consultancy Services Offered to Global Clients and Jeffrey Wilhite gives us the second part of How Many Countries Are There in the World?— Part II— The Country List and Gita Gunatilleke brings us Selection and Interdisciplinary Material at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ).	74
Edited by Sandra K. Paul and Albert Simmonds (SKP Associates)
	Webworthy by Pamela Rose — More Science Sites	76
	Innovations Affecting Us by Norm Desmarais — Restraints to Electronic Publishing on the Horizon? — Recent developments in the music industry may have some significant implications for the publishing industry.	78
	Chaos — Show Me the Metadata! by Ed Summers — So what is metadata anyway? Here are some definitions of the term, some ideas of how metadata is relevant to libraries, and some real-life examples of metadata in acti	79
	Call for Contributors	4
	Adventures in Librarianship by Ned Kraft — Dear Valued Customer...	83
	Call for Papers 1999 Charleston Conference — November 4-6, 1999, Charleston, S.C.	85