6/29/98

CONTACT: Elaine C. Ray, News Service (650) 723-7162;
elaineray@stanford.edu

Stanford University Library launches electronic journal marketing group

Stanford University Library, in cooperation with five leading scientific publishers, has launched the HighWire Marketing Group. The group will promote and distribute a wide range of scholarly journals currently published with the assistance of HighWire Press. In a departure from current distribution models, the Marketing Group features online prices that are lower than many print prices.

HighWire Marketing Group has established distribution arrangements with some of the leading scholarly publishers in the scientific and technical fields, including the American Academy of Pediatrics; the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; the American Society for Cell Biology; the Histochemical Society; the Rockefeller University Press and the American Physiological Society. In the coming weeks, additional publishers will announce their participation in the group.

Along with highly competitive prices, the HighWire Marketing Group offers special consortium pricing, the convenience of buying multiple titles from one source or using current subscription agents, and easy-to-understand licensing arrangements. The Marketing Group is currently forming relationships with some of the leading journal subscription agents in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia to ensure world-wide outlets for its journal titles.

"Formation of the HighWire Marketing Group is another vital step in making journals of scholarly societies more widely available," said Michael A. Keller, HighWire publisher and Stanford librarian. "Publishers working with HighWire share a principal goal of enhancing scholarly communication even while engaging in cost recovery business models. We intend to increase and extend the beneficial effects of HighWire Press through the Marketing Group," Keller added.

The HighWire Marketing Group is a voluntary association of nonprofit publishers of peer-reviewed, high-impact scientific, technical and medical research. Its goal is to serve the worldwide interest in scientific research, instruction and communication consistent with the principles developed by the International Consortium on Library Consortia.

HighWire Press, the Internet imprint of the Stanford University Libraries, currently maintains more than 50 online journal titles, is dedicated to fostering research and instruction by providing a more direct link between the writers and readers of scholarly materials. The press was started in an effort to ensure that the nascent marketplace for electronic communication among scholars does not develop along the semi-monopolistic lines of current scientific, technical and medical print publishing.

For further information visit the HighWire Marketing Group's website at http://hwmg.stanford.edu/ or the website of HighWire Press at http://highwire.stanford.edu/.

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By Jim Hydock