Subject: response (for the list) to letter about Topology From: "Dev P. Sinha" Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:23:52 -0800 Dear Mr. Ross, Be advised that mathematicians can be a skeptical audience, especially when presented with cherry-picked facts and statistics. A couple instances: "Our price increase is among the lowest in the industry" Well, increasing 5% on a $2000 title hurts a lot more than a 7% increase on a $300 title. We'd need to see a full picture here for this sentence to be meaningful. ..."more available"... Maybe, with the advent of predominant use of electronic sources. But compare your usage totals to those of open access journals after they get established and the comparison is usually not favorable. "invested $160 million in digitizing and maintaining the digital archive of our entire program" Yes, we appreciate efforts of publishers here. Our issue isn't with what you are doing, but what you are charging for it (and reaping in profits). The Annals of Mathematics is having all of its articles where they have the (La)Tex source moved to the arXiv, and have (most? all?) of its further-back issues on JStor. The Annals cost much less for libraries than Topology. They may be subsidized by Princeton University, but almost certainly not the tune where the discrepancy between what they charge and what you charge can be accounted for. Given the tenor of your letter, I am not surprised that the former editors of Topology have severed their relationship with Elsevier. Sincerely, Dev Sinha Associate Professor and University Library Committee Member, University of Oregon ____________________________________________________________________________________ Subject: Posting Elsevier Response From: "Ross, Robert \(ELS\)" Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:08:55 -0600 As the Pure Maths Journal Publisher at Elsevier, I welcome your comments and alternate views on the Topology Editor's resignation and Elsevier's journal publishing program. Please feel free to contact me at anytime. Thanks Bob