Main Index: Trial Testimony June 17, 1997
1027
1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
2 ------------------------------x
3 GORDON & BREACH SCIENCE
PUBLISHERS S.A., STBS., LTD.
4 and HARWOOD ACADEMIC
PUBLISHERS GMBH,
5
Plaintiffs,
6
v. 93 CV 6656 LBS
7
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS
8 and THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL
SOCIETY,
9
Defendants.
10
------------------------------x
11
June 17, 1997
12 11:20 a.m.
Before:
13
HON. LEONARD B. SAND
14
District Judge
15
16
17 APPEARANCES
18 ORANS, ELSEN & LUPERT, LLP
Attorneys for Plaintiffs
19 BY: LESLIE A. LUPERT
ROBERT L. PLOTZ
20 PETER E. SEIDMAN
21 COVINGTON & BURLING
Attorneys for Defendants
22 BY: RICHARD A. MESERVE
JEFFREY G. HUVELLE
23 SUSAN L. BURKE
24
25
1028
1 (Trial resumed)
2 PAUL H. RIBBE,
3 Resumed, and testified further as follows:
4 THE COURT: Good morning. You may be seated.
5 You may resume.
6 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, if I may note just two
7 things for the record before I begin. Yesterday I showed
8 the witness the Exhibit N and then took it back from him.
9 The data underlying that chart is not in evidence so I will
10 not be using Exhibit N.
11 THE COURT: Exhibit N is withdrawn?
12 MR. HUVELLE: Yes.
13 In addition, your Honor, in connection with the
14 testimony of Dr. King, I introduced a biographical statement
15 relating to him, and the record reflects it is as being
16 Exhibit UU, which may be the way I described it -- I am
17 sorry, the record reflects that it is Exhibit VV. In fact,
18 the Exhibit is UU, so Defendants' Exhibit UU is in evidence,
19 not VV, and we will not be offering VV.
20 (Defendant's Exhibit UU received in evidence)
21 THE COURT: All right. Let me return Exhibit N
22 so it doesn't get mixed in with documents that are in
23 evidence.
24 DIRECT EXAMINATION (Resumed)
25 BY MR. HUVELLE:
1029
1 Q. Now, Mr. Ribbe, Dr. Kingma testified that a
2 journal might improve its cost impact ratio by adding pages
3 and pages of nonsense words; do you remember that testimony?
4 A. Yes, I do.
5 Q. How much weight do you give to this criticism of
6 Dr. Barschall's methodology?
7 A. I don't give any weight to it at all.
8 Q. Why not?
9 A. Editors wouldn't allow it, authors wouldn't do
10 it, journals wouldn't print it. We could go on.
11 Q. Let me direct your attention to the five Comments
12 Journals of Gordon & Breach about which there has been some
13 testimony by Mr. Gordon.
14 Have you looked at those journals?
15 A. Yes, I have.
16 Q. Is it true that Dr. Barschall included those five
17 journals in his cost per character calculations in table 3
18 of Plaintiffs' Exhibit 2?
19 A. Yes, he did.
20 Q. And do you recall Mr. Gordon's testimony that
21 those five journals are, by definition, the most expensive?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Is that correct?
24 A. No.
25 MR. LUPERT: I don't think Mr. Gordon testified
1030
1 to that at all, Judge. I think all he testified to were
2 components of cost that were inherent in it.
3 THE COURT: I have no recollection of his
4 characterizing them as the most expensive. But --
5 THE WITNESS: It's possible I'm confusing cost
6 and price. You know, he used -- he talked about a cost of
7 production also.
8 MR. HUVELLE: Well, let me withdraw that question
9 and I will have to look back at the record.
10 Q. What effect did the inclusion of the five
11 Comments Journals have -- the inclusion in Dr. Barschall's
12 study, what effect did that have on the average cost per
13 character of Gordon & Breach journals?
14 A. The place where the average cost per character --
15 thousand characters of Gordon & Breach articles appears is
16 in table 2 of the Physics Today article, page 59, where the
17 average is 19.6 cents for 11 journals, which included the
18 Comments Journals.
19 The Comments Journals are, if you look back at
20 table 3, in the first -- the bulletin article, you see that
21 they all had prices -- I think all of them had prices which
22 were less than 19.2 cents, so they would be lowering the
23 average cost rather than raising it.
24 Q. Did Dr. Barschall include the five Comments
25 Journals in his list of journals based upon cost per impact?
1031
1 A. No.
2 Q. Do you know why he did not do so?
3 A. They had no impact factor in the ISI Journal
4 Citation Reports.
5 Q. There was testimony relating to 13 physics
6 journals that were not included in Dr. Barschall's study; do
7 you recall that?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. One of those journals is called Physics of
10 Metals?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Have you seen that journal?
13 A. I've seen bits of it, yes.
14 Q. What type of journal is that?
15 A. That's a review journal -- I mean, I'm sorry, not
16 a review journal. It a translation journal, from the
17 Russian, I believe.
18 Q. Does Dr. Barschall include translation journals
19 in tables 1 and 2 of the Physics Today article?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Does he include them in tables 3 or 4 of the
22 bulletin article?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Another of the journals identified as a physics
25 journal not included in Dr. Barschall's study was
1032
1 Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics. Are you
2 familiar with that journal?
3 A. Yes, I am.
4 Q. If that were included in -- well, let's focus on
5 your own listing of cost per character. That would be
6 Exhibit D?
7 A. B?
8 Q. D, as in David.
9 A. Oh, OK.
10 Q. If the Geophysical and Astrophysical Dynamics
11 Journal was included in Exhibit D, where would it rank?
12 A. It would rank below the Physics and Chemistry of
13 Liquids, which is the last journal on the lower right-hand
14 column.
15 Q. And what is the cost per thousand characters for
16 Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics?
17 MR. PLOTZ: Objection. Based on what? When? We
18 haven't been provided with any of it.
19 THE WITNESS: Yes.
20 THE COURT: Mr. Huvelle.
21 MR. HUVELLE: One moment, your Honor.
22 THE COURT: The reference is to Defendants'
23 Exhibit D, and do you want to restate the question?
24 MR. HUVELLE: Well, your Honor, I asked him where
25 it would rank if it were included on Defendants' Exhibit
1033
1 D --
2 THE COURT: Yes.
3 MR. HUVELLE: -- in terms of cents per thousand
4 characters.
5 THE COURT: Yes.
6 MR. HUVELLE: Let me ask him a few questions how
7 it gets there.
8 Q. Have you done a calculation of the number of
9 pages in that journal?
10 A. Yes -- for 1987, yes.
11 Q. Have you done a calculation of the costs per
12 thousand characters for that journal?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And what is the cost per thousand characters for
15 that journal, Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics,
16 or the price per thousand characters, approximately?
17 A. It's in the 30 cents range, 30-plus.
18 Q. And what about the dollars per page or cents per
19 page?
20 A. Well, I don't recall exactly. It was in the
21 '80s. 80 cents. 86 cents. I don't know, 81 cents.
22 Somewhere in that vicinity.
23 Q. I would like to show the witness Defendants'
24 Exhibit AAAAAA, six.
25 MR. PLOTZ: I'm sorry, Judge, this page relating
1034
1 to this journal is not in our copy of the exhibit, that I
2 can tell.
3 (Pause)
4 MR. PLOTZ: Now I have it.
5 Q. What is the cost per page for that journal?
6 A. 81 cents.
7 Q. In connection with your work as the head of the
8 library committee at Virginia Tech University, have you done
9 any assessment of this journal?
10 A. We did an assessment of this journal, not as
11 thorough as this, but we did an assessment in the early '90s
12 when we were requested to do an evaluation of all our
13 library journals.
14 Q. And what was the result of that assessment?
15 MR. PLOTZ: Judge, I object. This is way beyond
16 what was in his report, and, in fact, the exhibit that he is
17 testifying about I just got for the first time.
18 THE COURT: But he is responding to Dr. Gordon's
19 testimony. It may be beyond his report but it is
20 specifically responsive to issues raised by Mr. Gordon.
21 Overruled.
22 Q. What is the result of that assessment?
23 A. We ended up canceling this journal.
24 Q. And on what basis did you make that decision?
25 A. Well, there were two bases. One is that our list
1035
1 for consideration of cancellations was ordered on price --
2 in other words, the highest cost, subscription cost, would
3 occur at the top of the list, and it was fairly near the top
4 of the list on a per volume basis. And then also, the other
5 thing we had to help us was something every librarian would
6 like to have probably, is that we had a circulation data
7 which is kept in our computer, in our VTLS file, and it
8 showed that it had been taken out of the library once in the
9 past 8 or 10 years, so we decided that would be evidence
10 enough for cancellation. In other words, it was something
11 that our faculty apparently did not have any use for because
12 they are not in that field.
13 I also knew that, by the way. I knew that there
14 were no people working in fluid dynamics at the time.
15 Q. Did you look at any other data?
16 A. Based on my previous work with mineralogy, I knew
17 enough -- and geophysics, I reviewed the geophysics data of
18 Spies, S-p-i-e-s, which he had provided for me earlier, and
19 so I just looked up impact factor.
20 Q. Let me direct your attention to another journal
21 identified by Mr. Gordon, Magnetic Resonance Reviews.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Have you done a per character cost calculation
24 with respect to that journal?
25 A. Yes, I did.
1036
1 Q. And what is the cost in cents per character of
2 that journal?
3 A. Approximately 33 cents.
4 Q. And how would that rank on Defendant's Exhibit D
5 if that had been included in the parameters of this study?
6 A. It, too, would have been down by the Physics
7 Chemistry of Liquids, in other words, below the last one on
8 the list.
9 Q. And what about cost per page, what is the cost
10 per page for that journal?
11 A. Cost per page is reported here as 86.7 cents.
12 Q. And where would that place it on Defendants'
13 Exhibit C, which is the ranking of journals by cost per
14 page?
15 A. It would place it about fourth from the bottom,
16 just above Physics and Chemistry of Liquids.
17 Q. I would like to have you look at Plaintiff's
18 Exhibit 706F and also 706E.
19 Could you identify for us the impact factor for
20 the journal Ferroelectrics for those two years?
21 A. Yes, on --
22 Q. Is this --
23 A. On which exhibit?
24 Q. Why don't we start with 706F.
25 A. 706F is 1985.
1037
1 Q. Right. If you turn to page 262.
2 A. Yes, 262, it is toward the end.
3 Q. In which category is it listed?
4 A. It is listed in "physics, condensed matter."
5 Q. And what is the impact factor for Ferroelectrics?
6 A. The impact factor is .859.
7 Q. And can you look at 706E?
8 A. Yes. I found that one. It is on page 253.
9 Q. And what is the impact factor in that year?
10 A. Under "physics, condensed matter" of
11 Ferroelectrics is .443.
12 Q. And what is roughly the average of those two?
13 A. About .65.
14 Q. And what was the impact factor in 1986 used by
15 Dr. Barschall?
16 A. That will be on Exhibit B, in column N, on the
17 second page in yellow, marked in yellow. Ferroelectrics was
18 .63.
19 Q. Now, in your review of all the citation data for
20 Exhibit B, did you detect any errors in the data that was
21 provided by ISI, or omissions?
22 A. You mean errors in impact factor? Or any errors
23 at all?
24 Q. Any errors at all.
25 A. I'm not sure I found any errors, but I found an
1038
1 omission.
2 Q. What was the omission?
3 A. Well, the omission was connected with the journal
4 Ferroelectrics.
5 Q. Can you tell us what the omission was?
6 A. In 1986 -- and this is column P -- there was a
7 noticeable absence of the immediacy index, and also there
8 was a vacancy or an opening, nothing in the column which was
9 labeled, in ISI, was labeled "number of source items in
10 1986." In other words, there was nothing recorded there in
11 either of those columns.
12 Q. And what does the item "source items" refer to?
13 A. That refers to the number of citable articles
14 that occur in the journal for that year.
15 Q. And what is your understanding of how ISI
16 determines the number of citable items or articles?
17 A. They count them.
18 Q. From where?
19 A. They count them from the journals which they
20 receive at their office.
21 Q. And have you gone back and counted the number of
22 journals -- the number of articles that appeared in that
23 year?
24 A. Yes, I did, because to complete my database I
25 needed that number.
1039
1 Q. And do you recall what the number was?
2 A. Well, it's recorded in this Exhibit B, in column
3 N, under "Ferroelectrics," it is recorded as -- I'm sorry,
4 column O, as 124.
5 Q. And how did you determine that?
6 A. Actually went through the journal and counted the
7 number of citable articles in the journal.
8 Q. And did you recalculate the impact factor for
9 1987 based upon the correct number of citable items?
10 A. Yes, I did.
11 Q. And what result did you get?
12 A. That's in column S, and the number is 1.229.
13 Q. And did you make any other adjustments to the
14 citation or impact data on Exhibit B?
15 A. I don't recall any others.
16 Q. That was the only omission you noticed?
17 A. There were omissions in other years, but -- in
18 '87, for example, there were omissions, but I didn't do
19 anything with those.
20 Q. I would like to have you look at a document that
21 has been marked as Defendants' Exhibit P.
22 MR. PLOTZ: I'm sorry, what letter?
23 MR. HUVELLE: P, as in Peter.
24 Q. Did you prepare this document?
25 A. I did.
1040
1 Q. And what does it show?
2 A. The data taken for this exhibit come from columns
3 AA and AB in Exhibit 1, and it shows, on the vertical axis,
4 a plot of the total citations from the ISI index for the
5 year 1986, for all the journals -- of all the 148 journals
6 in the table, and that is plotted against for a price, so to
7 get some price structure into this, plotted against dollars
8 per page using the 1987 subscription price and page numbers.
9 Q. Are the Gordon & Breach journals separately
10 identified?
11 A. They were darkened-in and then labeled, yes.
12 Q. And the AIP and APS journals?
13 A. Not all of them. I just identified a few of the
14 high-citation ones.
15 Q. And which journal is N-H?
16 A. That is North Holland Journal.
17 Q. Is that a society or a commercial publisher?
18 A. That is a commercial journal.
19 Q. What does this document, this exhibit, show with
20 regard to Gordon & Breach, in terms of its distinctiveness?
21 A. Well, the total citations in 1986 are low, on the
22 order of 1,000 or 1,500 or less -- that's to all years of
23 the journal that existed prior -- including 1986 and all the
24 way badge to the origin of the journal. And it also shows,
25 obviously, that their price is higher than most -- their
1041
1 prices are higher than most.
2 Q. Are there other journals shown on the document
3 that have comparable numbers of total citations?
4 A. Oh, many, yes. Probably 30 or 40.
5 Q. Are there other journals shown on this exhibit
6 that have comparable price on a unit measure?
7 A. I would say anything over 60 cents a page, there
8 are four -- there happen to be four -- that are commercial
9 journals that fall in that range.
10 Q. Could I have you now look at Defendants' Exhibit
11 Q.
12 Did you prepare this exhibit?
13 A. I did.
14 Q. What does this exhibit show -- how does it differ
15 and how does it resemble the prior one?
16 A. The -- I'm plotting the same things, that is, the
17 total citations and dollars per page on the vertical and
18 horizontal axis, respectively, but in this case I took the
19 average citations and the average dollars per page for any
20 society or commercial publisher which published more than
21 three -- three or more journals and I averaged those prices
22 and I averaged those total citations and plotted them as a
23 single datum.
24 Q. On this exhibit there are references to two
25 articles, do you see that?
1042
1 A. Two articles? Excuse me.
2 Oh, yes. Yes, in the legend of the caption.
3 Q. And for what purpose did you mention those
4 articles?
5 A. Since this piece of work is new, I'm just
6 comparing it to -- by reference -- by reason of reference to
7 work done by Bensman on chemistry journals and works done by
8 Benian and Karscham Roon, K-a-r-s-c-h-a-m R-o-o-n, a
9 journal that -- an article which was published in the
10 journal of documentation in 1984 on physics journals.
11 Q. Is there anyone else who has done an analysis of
12 journals in a particular scientific area based on total
13 citations?
14 A. Yes, actually there is.
15 Q. Who is that?
16 A. That was Spies.
17 Q. And for what area did he do it?
18 A. He did it for geophysics expiration journals.
19 Q. And he used total citations?
20 A. He used dollars per total citation.
21 Q. What can you tell us about the study done by
22 Benian and Karscham Roon?
23 A. I can tell you that their purpose was to try to
24 find a citation parameter which correlated well with faculty
25 perception of value and utility of a journal. And they
1043
1 found that this total citation parameter correlated well
2 with faculty -- perceived faculty value of journals.
3 And Bensman did likewise but he did it with
4 chemistry journals at his university.
5 Q. Did Bensman also look at impact factor?
6 A. No, Bensman -- well, Bensman looked at impact
7 factor. He put it into the citation analysis and -- into
8 the regression analysis, I'm sorry, regression is the
9 appropriate word -- as one of the citation factors that he
10 considered.
11 Q. And what is your understanding of the reason why
12 total citations correlated more closely with faculty
13 rankings in Bensman's study?
14 A. Well, total citations in a given year apply to
15 all issues, former volumes and issues of that journal, back
16 to its inception. So if a journal has been around for very
17 long, or if a journal is a very large journal in terms of
18 number of articles that it publishes, one would expect the
19 number of citations -- total number of citations to be high,
20 and if the journal has quality and the faculty perceives
21 that it does, then they would say -- that's probably why I
22 put that down. I don't have any evidence of that, but that
23 would be what I would do.
24 Q. Based upon Mr. Bensman's analysis, what
25 conclusions can be drawn as to the relative value placed by
1044
1 the faculty members in his study on large journals versus
2 small and specialty journals?
3 A. Well, large journals clearly -- large journals,
4 in terms of number of articles, presumably reach more
5 people, or impact them more. You can think of it in two
6 different ways. One is that it reaches more people, which
7 is possible, but the other is, of course, that, given the
8 fact that there are a lot of articles that may be reaching
9 to various and sundry other areas of physics and they may be
10 looking at more than one article in a particular large
11 journal.
12 Q. Can we draw any inference as to which kind of
13 journal was valued more highly by the faculty in Bensman's
14 study?
15 A. In Bensman's study, he actually did a survey of
16 faculty -- faculty, what shall we say -- what they stated
17 was useful, valuable, helpful to them.
18 Q. OK. Now, let me ask you about Dr. Barschall's
19 methodology.
20 Let me specifically direct your attention to --
21 let me just direct your attention to two measurements, one
22 being the unit cost measurement, the other being a
23 measurement based upon citation data.
24 First of all, let me ask you to turn to
25 Defendants' Exhibit AA, which is the analysis that you
1045
1 performed with respect to mineralogy journals.
2 A. OK.
3 Q. Let me ask you to turn to page 457 of your first
4 article, and figure 3, in which there are four graphs, do
5 you see that?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Can you tell us what you plotted in graph A?
8 A. In graph A, I -- the horizontal axis represents
9 the mean impact factor for 1983 to 1985 of the 15 individual
10 journals that I studied in my prestige and price study, and
11 on the vertical axis are the percentage of papers by
12 authors -- by American authors of grants from the National
13 Science Foundation, plus the Department of Energy, plus
14 NASA.
15 Q. And to what extent did you find that these two
16 elements were correlated?
17 A. Well, it's pretty obvious from the graph that
18 those who had support, 15 to 45 percent of the people who
19 had support published in the lower impact journals, that is,
20 below 1.2, in impact factor; and those whose support was 60
21 percent, up to 75 or 78 percent, maybe even 80 percent, were
22 publishing in journals with impact factors greater than 1.2,
23 all the way up to 3.6.
24 Q. And what conclusions do you draw from this
25 comparison?
1046
1 A. Well, my conclusion, since this was part of a
2 study of NSF funding and the prestige of institutions of
3 learning -- higher learning in the geosciences, my
4 conclusion was those who are funded -- and all funding is
5 competitive in this business -- who are funded by the
6 community, they have to go through certain rigors to get
7 funded, including reviews and criticisms from their
8 colleagues and peers. Those who had support tended to
9 publish in journals with higher impact factors, and those
10 who had less support, or, as one can see in another of these
11 graphs, who had no support, tended to publish in journals
12 with lower impact factors.
13 Q. And what does table -- figure B show?
14 A. Figure B shows simply the percentage of papers in
15 a given journal by U.S. authors.
16 Q. What is the straight line in that graph?
17 A. The straight line is -- got me into trouble with
18 some of my friends who work for the U.S. Geological Survey
19 and other federal agencies. It showed that they tended
20 to -- well, one could hardly hope -- hold them to it. It is
21 not much of a trend. But they didn't seem to have that same
22 discrimination in terms of where they published. In other
23 words, those government-agency types seem to publish
24 somewhat more frequently in the lower impact journals.
25 Q. Could you turn to the last -- page 462 of this
1047
1 article, to the references section.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. What articles by Mr. Garfield did you cite there?
4 A. There was an article in Science 1972 in which he
5 first put forth his citation analysis as a tool in journal
6 evaluation to the general public, scientific public.
7 And then the following are a couple of essays
8 that came from what actually became collections of essays by
9 him and other members of ISI called "Essays of an
10 Information Scientist," published by ISI.
11 Q. And why did you cite Mr. Hawkins there?
12 A. Well, Hawkins had done a citation analysis of the
13 crystallographic literature back in 1980, which was a very
14 early one for mineralogically related fields.
15 Q. Can you turn to the last page of Exhibit AA?
16 A. Yes? Are. Oh, the very last page or the last
17 page of this article?
18 Q. The very last page of the entire document.
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Is this a list of your references with respect to
21 your most recent bibliographic publications?
22 A. Yes, attached to the very last one, which is the
23 article in which it appears.
24 Q. And you refer to Spies in that list of
25 references?
1048
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Can you tell us what article you are referring to
3 there?
4 A. That is an article which was published in
5 Geophysics either in '91 or '92, I forget which now, that he
6 had sent me a preprint of, for my comments and also for my
7 use. I actually used some of his data in this paper, to
8 which this is -- this reference is appended.
9 Q. And can you turn to the first page of this
10 article.
11 A. Page 41?
12 Q. Yes.
13 Can you look at the first paragraph.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Let me just read a couple of sentences from the
16 first:
17 "An extensive study of serial publications in
18 mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry has demonstrated that
19 the quality of a journal is reliably indicated by its impact
20 factor as reported by the Science Citation Index. A
21 serial's IF is highly correlated to SCI's Immediacy Index to
22 the proportion of papers in that serial supported by
23 research grants from the National Science Foundation, the
24 U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and
25 Space Administration and even to the number of grants
1049
1 acknowledged per paper as funded by these agencies. One
2 measure of the value of a serial may be calculated by
3 dividing the cost per source item or the cost per character
4 by IF."
5 Do you see that statement?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Does that accurately summarize the views that you
8 derived from the analysis in this study?
9 A. This is referring particularly to the mineralogy,
10 petrology, geochemistry study, which was the first of the
11 papers, Exhibit AA, and, yes, my answer to that is yes.
12 Q. I would like you to turn to Defendants' Exhibit
13 LLL. Do you have that up there?
14 A. No, sir.
15 Q. Well, wait a minute. You are right.
16 (Pause)
17 Can you identify the first article in Defendants'
18 Exhibit LLL?
19 A. Yes, it's called "Citation Analysis as a Tool in
20 Journal Evaluation."
21 Q. And what is the subheading there?
22 A. "Journals can be ranked by frequency and impact
23 of citations for science policy studies."
24 Q. And what is the date of this article?
25 A. 1972.
1050
1 Q. Is this the article which you cited in your -- in
2 the prior article that you just referred to?
3 A. Yes. That is one of them.
4 Q. Can you turn to page 37A of this exhibit.
5 Let me direct your attention to the section
6 entitled "some applications."
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Let me direct you to the second sentence,
9 "Measures of citation frequency and impact factor should be
10 helpful in determining the optimum makeup of both special
11 and general collections." Do you see that statement?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. And at the bottom of that columns do you see the
14 statement, "Another application which harried librarians may
15 welcome is the correlation of data on citation frequency in
16 impact with subscription costs. Such a correlation can
17 provide a solid basis for cost benefit analyses in the
18 management of subscription budgets." Do you see that
19 statement?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Were you aware of those views by Dr. Garfield at
22 the time you did your own analysis in 1986?
23 A. When I began it, no. But I came to find these
24 things as I stumbled through the process of trying to make
25 some sense out of all of this data.
1051
1 Q. And did you ultimately prepare an analysis using
2 impact factor?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Can you turn to the next article in that exhibit.
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Is that another article by Mr. Garfield?
7 A. Yes, and a co-author.
8 Q. And what is the import of that article?
9 A. This was a very interesting study. It is not the
10 first he had done. This is dated 1992. I recall one some
11 years earlier, maybe in the '70s, in which he began to see
12 if he could locate in a group of highly-cited scientists in
13 the fields in which Nobel prizes are given, to locate in
14 those groups those who -- by simply looking at citations, to
15 find people who had received the Nobel Prize and to keep
16 track of those who might receive the Nobel Prize. And this
17 paper carries that both forward and backwards, by generating
18 a new list and by sort of touting his success, a little
19 braggadocio, I would say, in this article about the use of
20 citation in spotting those kinds of people.
21 Q. And what kind what conclusions did it reach about
22 the use of citations in that regard?
23 A. Very helpful. Very useful. He didn't predict
24 exactly who is going to get it, but he picked out the group
25 from which probably the next Nobelists would be chosen, the
1052
1 future ones. Time will tell.
2 Q. I would like you to look at Defendants' Exhibit
3 K.
4 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, I am not sure if you
5 have that. You might.
6 THE COURT: I had it at one time.
7 Q. Can you look at Defendants' Exhibit KKK.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Can you look at the second article in the
10 exhibit.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. That's called "A Study of Chemical Research
13 Publications."
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. What organization does that relate to?
16 A. It's funny, it doesn't say on the cover, but it's
17 the American -- or the ACS, American Chemical Society. And
18 it is their department of market research.
19 Q. And is the American Chemical Society a publisher
20 of journals?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Are you familiar with the extent to which that
23 society uses impact factors in assessing, or the extent to
24 which they use impact factors?
25 A. Yes.
1053
1 Q. Can you tell us how they use them?
2 A. I have a friend who is an editor of one of their
3 25 journals, and he provided me recently with their annual
4 statement, which is handed to all the editors and associate
5 editors, which shows the impact factors for all of the 25
6 journals of ACS tabulated back five years, so that they can
7 see the progress, change in impact factor with time --
8 THE COURT: This is for self-evaluation?
9 THE WITNESS: This is a self-evaluation from ISI
10 data, that's correct.
11 MR. PLOTZ: Your Honor, I am going to object at
12 this point. Professor Ribbe is not offering expert
13 testimony on this issue. He is talking about a document
14 from another society which a friend of his gave him, who
15 isn't here. It is double hearsay. It is not expert
16 testimony. He is just talking about a document a friend
17 gave him.
18 MR. HUVELLE: Well, your Honor --
19 THE COURT: Overruled. But he is testifying as
20 an expert, and he is able to testify with respect to his
21 utilization of those things which an expert in this field
22 would customarily rely upon. It is classic expert
23 testimony.
24 Overruled.
25 Q. Does the American Chemistry Society use impact
1054
1 factors, impact data in any other respect?
2 A. Well, they use it in this particular document, in
3 fact.
4 No, not this one. I've seen it in others that
5 they have. This one uses -- is a price analysis, a cost
6 analysis.
7 Q. Am I correct in understanding that you have
8 testified that they use impact factor -- they track impact
9 factor over a number of years?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Do they present any other data to editors
12 relating to impact factor?
13 A. Yes, they do. They present the journal ranking.
14 For example, my friend edits the Journal of Natural
15 Products, and that's a relatively new journal for the
16 American Chemical Society, dealing mainly with trying to
17 extract medicinal things from Amazonian trees or bugs or
18 things of that sort, and they track the ranking that that
19 journal has in several different ISI categories. It is
20 ranked, for example, in pharmacology, and it is ranked in
21 general chemistry, and it may have another ranking, as well.
22 So they track all of those from year to year to indicate to
23 the editors how things are going.
24 Q. Now, the document in front of you, "A Study of
25 Chemical Research Publications," what kind of analysis is
1055
1 set forth in that document? Is that a cost analysis or a
2 citation analysis?
3 A. On page 2, there is an increase in price,
4 subscription price, over a four-year period, and then on
5 page 3, there are cents per 1,000 word analyses. Then they
6 do an average subscription price for 1986 for commercial
7 society and ACS publications.
8 Q. And what is the date of that analysis?
9 A. 1986.
10 Q. Can you look at the next document in the exhibit.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Called "Price Comparison Study of Optics
13 Periodical Literature."
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. 1984 to 1986.
16 Can you tell us what document -- what this is?
17 A. This is prepared for the Optical Society of
18 America by a consulting service. And --
19 Q. What is the measure of comparison?
20 A. The measure of comparison, they give the
21 subscription price, they give the number of pages, and they
22 give the cents per 1,000 words, for quite a number of
23 optics-related journals.
24 Q. And what period of time does study relate to?
25 A. Table 1 and table 2 -- well, table 1 is 1986 and
1056
1 table 2 considers 1986 versus 1984 cents per 1,000 words.
2 Q. And when was the article prepared?
3 A. It must have been prepared -- well, it is
4 copyrighted 1987, so I presume that it was finished then.
5 Q. And can you turn to page 29 of this exhibit.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. In the lower right.
8 Is that another price comparison within the
9 optics field?
10 A. Yes, optics -- this is prepared by the same
11 consulting service.
12 Q. Does this use the same measure of price, unit
13 price?
14 Look at page 31.
15 A. Cents per 1,000 word values were calculated using
16 the following procedures, and they described their
17 methodology.
18 Q. What is the date of this article?
19 A. This one is dated December 1985.
20 Q. Which academic disciplines, to your knowledge,
21 have in the last decade or so done similar price analyses
22 based on a unit measure of cost such as cost per 1,000
23 characters, dollars per page?
24 A. The American Mathematical Society did it, the
25 European Mathematical Council, the International Union of
1057
1 Crystallography, obviously the optics and physics people
2 have done it.
3 Q. Chemistry?
4 A. Well, chemistry, Bensman did some things with
5 chemistry and other people have done -- Christensen had done
6 some things with chemistry. I'm trying to think if there
7 were -- it seems to me there were others. Oh, I know.
8 Actually, Barschall refers to a study of philosophy journals
9 that are done on cents per character. I never looked at
10 that.
11 Q. And can you look at this exhibit, page 111.
12 A. Yes. That reminds me of another one.
13 Q. And what is this study?
14 A. This is the "Effectiveness of Journals in
15 Expiration Geophysics" by Spies, 1991.
16 Q. What parameters did he use?
17 A. He looked at total citations and the subscription
18 price. So he would take the total subscription price for a
19 year and divide it by the number of citations in that year.
20 Q. And can you look at the abstract on the first
21 page of that article.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Was he purporting to measure the cost
24 effectiveness of these journals?
25 A. That's what he says, to judge their cost
1058
1 effectiveness and impact, in the first sentence.
2 Q. And can you look at the next article, beginning
3 page 126.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. What measure does this use?
6 A. Here he uses million characters.
7 Q. Cost per million characters?
8 A. Cost per million characters, yes.
9 Q. Who is the author of this study?
10 A. This is John Christensen.
11 Q. What group of journals is he analyzing in this
12 study?
13 A. Chemistry journals, in particular. Yes, mainly
14 breaking them down into commercial, society and combination
15 type journals.
16 Q. What is the date of this study?
17 A. It was published in '92. It covers the years
18 1980 to 1990.
19 Q. And what is the next article in this set,
20 beginning at page 147?
21 A. "Do we know what we are paying for? A comparison
22 of journal and subscription costs, by John Christensen."
23 Q. What measure of cost does he use?
24 A. Again, cost per million characters.
25 Q. And can you look at the next article beginning at
1059
1 page 173. Is this the analysis of statistics journals to
2 which you referred to a moment ago?
3 A. Yes, "Survey of Statistical Journals," published
4 in 1992.
5 Q. And what unit measure of cost does he use, on
6 page --
7 A. My recollection is that he uses --
8 Q. If you look at page --
9 A. Cents -- dollars per paper, dollars per page
10 and -- I guess that's it, or, yes, cents per page, I'm
11 sorry, dollars per paper.
12 Q. And the first exhibit, the very first exhibit in
13 this set, the 1933 article, what measure does that use?
14 A. That uses approximate cost in cents for 10,000
15 words.
16 Q. What does that show as the total domestic
17 subscription price for the first journal, yearly?
18 A. Domestic for the first one in the table?
19 Q. Yes.
20 A. It looks like $9.60.
21 Q. Can I ask you to look at Defendant's Exhibit G.
22 Did you prepare this exhibit?
23 A. I did.
24 Q. What data did you use for this?
25 A. I used data from the Notices of the American
1060
1 Mathematical Society, dated 1989.
2 Q. And what does this exhibit show?
3 A. Well, in this case, I decided to plot the two
4 cost measures that I had used in my exhibit for the physics
5 journals. One is, in this case, cents per page rather than
6 dollars per page, and the other is cents per 1,000
7 characters on the horizontal axis.
8 Q. And how are society and university publishers
9 indicated on this exhibit?
10 A. The society and university publishers have open
11 symbols, and commercial publishers have the filled symbols.
12 Q. And how many commercial publishers are included
13 in this analysis?
14 A. There are five.
15 Q. And what is the identity of the commercial
16 publisher shown at the far right?
17 A. At the far upper right is the Gordon & Breach
18 journals.
19 Q. In cents per thousand characters, where do they
20 rank?
21 A. Cents per thousand characters, about 63 or 62
22 cents per thousand characters.
23 Q. And cents per page?
24 A. Cents per page, 145.
25 Q. And can I ask you now to look at Defendants'
1061
1 Exhibit K.
2 Did you prepare this exhibit, sir?
3 A. I did.
4 Q. What data did you use?
5 A. I used data from the Institute of Mathematical
6 Statistics, published in 1992.
7 Q. What does this document show?
8 A. This is a frequency graph similar to the ones
9 that we looked at yesterday. And it plots the total number
10 of journals in each price category. The first price
11 category, labeled 5, covers the region from 0 to 10 cents
12 per page, the second one from 10 to 20 cents per page, and
13 so on.
14 Q. How many Gordon & Breach journals are included in
15 this journal?
16 A. Two.
17 Q. What is the lowest cents per page cost for the
18 G & B journals?
19 A. 145.
20 Q. And what is the highest cents per page costs of
21 the other 121 journals?
22 A. 85.
23 Q. I would like you to look at Defendants' Exhibits
24 S and T.
25 Let me ask you first, were you asked to prepare a
1062
1 report in connection with your work in this case?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Indeed, were you required to do so?
4 A. Yes, sir.
5 Q. And are these copies of the report and the
6 supplementary report that you prepared?
7 A. They are.
8 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, because I believe it is
9 going to be contested, I would like to formally move that he
10 be recognized as an expert witness in this case.
11 THE COURT: And define the area of his expertise.
12 MR. HUVELLE: On the assessment of the
13 cost-effectiveness of journals.
14 THE COURT: Is there an objection to his
15 expertise?
16 MR. PLOTZ: Yes, there is.
17 THE COURT: Do you want to articulate the
18 objection?
19 MR. PLOTZ: I can articulate it, and if a voir
20 dire is appropriate, we can do that.
21 THE COURT: You can conduct a voir dire, if you
22 wish.
23 MR. PLOTZ: I do.
24 THE COURT: Maybe we will take a five-minute
25 break.
1063
1 (Recess)
2 THE COURT: Voir dire?
3 MR. PLOTZ: Yes, your Honor.
4 VOIR DIRE EXAMINATION
5 BY MR. PLOTZ:
6 Q. Dr. Ribbe, I'm correct that your educational
7 background is in crystallography and related fields?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. And that in the more than 30 years in which
10 you've taught, all your teaching appointments were in the
11 fields of geology and crystallography and mineralogy,
12 correct?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. You haven't taught courses in any other areas,
15 have you?
16 A. That's correct.
17 Q. And the research that you have conducted over
18 your career, your funded research, has all been in the same
19 general areas of geology, crystallography, mineralogy,
20 correct?
21 A. I did some work in industry, in ceramics.
22 Q. OK. With that qualification, was my statement a
23 correct one?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You have had various fellowships along the way,
1064
1 haven't you?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And those fellowships have all been in generally
4 the crystallography-related areas?
5 A. Fellowships, yes.
6 Q. You are a member of professional societies?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. All of those societies relate to crystallography,
9 mineralogy, geology, those sorts of fields?
10 A. My scientific affiliations are scientific
11 societies, yes.
12 Q. In fact, you are the past president of the
13 Mineralogical Society of America, correct?
14 A. That is correct.
15 Q. You served as editor of various journals and
16 monographs, correct?
17 A. "Various" may be too generous. I am editor of
18 one group called Reviews in Mineralogy, and I edit the
19 monograph series for the Mineralogical Society of America.
20 Q. Those are both mineralogy-related publications,
21 correct?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. I think you testified yesterday that you had
24 published articles or chapters in books that number over
25 100?
1065
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Of those, I take it all but four have related to
3 mineralogy and crystallography and geology?
4 A. Pretty much, yes.
5 Q. And the four that I have taken out all relate to
6 the study of 15 mineralogy journals that you have already
7 testified about?
8 A. No, the first three were related to mineralogy
9 journals -- mineralogy, crystallography, petrology. The
10 last one included other geoscience fields as well as
11 physics. In other words, I reworked some of the Barschall
12 data in the last one.
13 Q. Before you looked into the mineralogy journals,
14 the 15 mineralogy journals -- you did that in about 1986 or
15 '87?
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 Q. -- you had not written anything --
18 A. No.
19 Q. -- relating to citation analysis or journal
20 pricing, had you?
21 A. No.
22 Q. And you had not made a study of the literature in
23 those fields, had you?
24 A. Not in an intense way like one does when one is
25 doing research under pressure.
1066
1 Q. And the various articles that you have given some
2 testimony about in Exhibit LLL, you didn't refer to all
3 those articles in your report, did you?
4 A. I'm sorry, all what articles?
5 Q. The articles in LLL that you've given testimony
6 about earlier this morning.
7 A. Oh, I suppose -- no, because some of them were
8 published after 1987.
9 Q. In your report in this case, you did not refer to
10 all of those articles, did you?
11 A. No -- well, in this case? That is probably true,
12 yes.
13 Q. Now, you have not taken any courses, have you, in
14 information science?
15 A. No.
16 Q. You certainly have never taught in information
17 science, have you?
18 A. No.
19 Q. And you have never conducted research in
20 information science, have you, other than perhaps this
21 mineralogy study?
22 A. Other than this study and the one that I did for
23 the Mineralogical Society.
24 Q. And the same is true with the library science,
25 isn't it? You have never taken a course with the library
1067
1 science, have you?
2 A. No.
3 Q. No. And you haven't taught any courses in
4 library science?
5 A. No.
6 Q. You haven't conducted any research in library
7 science?
8 A. If you can define "library science" for me?
9 Q. Can you?
10 A. I'm not sure. I guess I think that the kind of
11 thing that was done here is bibliometric. I am not sure
12 whether you would call it library science or not.
13 Q. You are not sure?
14 A. No, it doesn't matter what you call it.
15 Q. And I take it you haven't taken courses in
16 economics, either, have you?
17 A. No, the economic of life.
18 Q. You haven't studied it, have you?
19 A. Not specifically, no.
20 Q. You never taught a course in economics?
21 A. No.
22 Q. You have never written anything on the economics
23 of information, have you?
24 A. No.
25 MR. PLOTZ: Your Honor, we object to the offer of
1068
1 Dr. Ribbe as an expert in the area for which he has been
2 offered. He is undoubtedly an eminent mineralogist and
3 clearly qualified to offer expert testimony in
4 mineralogy-related fields but not in the fields for which he
5 is being offered.
6 THE COURT: The objection is overruled. The
7 Court is satisfied that Dr. Ribbe has had a sufficient
8 involvement in the matters as to which he has been proffered
9 as an expert based on his role on the library committee, his
10 experience as an editor and as an astute writer and lecturer
11 in this industry. Overruled.
12 DIRECT EXAMINATION (resumed)
13 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, we would like to move
14 into evidence Defendants' Exhibits Q, AA, LLL, KKK, G, K, S
15 and T.
16 MR. PLOTZ: We need that again.
17 THE COURT: You begin with Q?
18 MR. HUVELLE: Do you want me to do them in order?
19 I can re-sort them.
20 Re-sorted, it is G, K --
21 THE COURT: Wait a minute. I have read them and
22 you have dealt with them in the courtroom. Other than the
23 objection which I have just overruled, is there any
24 objection?
25 MR. PLOTZ: I am just finishing my list, your
1069
1 Honor.
2 We don't object to Q, G, or K. We do object to
3 the others, and generically, the basis for the objection is
4 the hearsay objection. S and T are Dr. Ribbe's report and
5 supplemental report. He is testifying. His report is
6 hearsay. So we object to their admission.
7 AA are the various articles he has written on the
8 mineralogy studies about which there has been some
9 testimony. That is hearsay. He has testified to that.
10 THE COURT: I would assume that when you took
11 Dr. Ribbe through the KKK and LLL, it was an acknowledgment
12 of a marvelous rule of evidence that says that an expert can
13 testify with respect to those things which are normally
14 relied upon by an expert but are not received in evidence.
15 It seems to me that that is clearly appropriate
16 here. That there has been extensive testimony with respect
17 to these documents and as to their nature, but I don't see
18 any virtue in receiving them in. So I sustain the objection
19 as to KKK and LLL.
20 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, our view was that,
21 under 703, that those would be admissible, and particularly
22 in this case where there is an independent need to establish
23 the state of the art, we thought that it would be helpful
24 evidence. In my examination, I was anticipating the
25 possibility of such a ruling and tried to get the essence of
1070
1 those studies into evidence.
2 MR. PLOTZ: Your Honor, even as to the latter
3 point Mr. Huvelle raises, that's what the experts are for
4 and he did elicit testimony about the various articles. The
5 purpose for which the offer is made doesn't affect the rule
6 of evidence that requires -- that does not permit these to
7 be received directly in evidence, as your Honor observed.
8 So, our objection on that ground applies to AA,
9 KKK and LLL.
10 THE COURT: AA is Dr. Ribbe's article on the
11 American mineralogy --
12 MR. PLOTZ: The group of articles, yes.
13 THE COURT: I take it my previous ruling would be
14 correct in a case in which an expert was offering expert
15 opinion in general, but that this case is different in that
16 the subject of the expertise, the testing methodology, is
17 itself an issue in the case. And why isn't that sound?
18 MR. PLOTZ: I agree that the state of testing
19 art, such as it is, is an element of the Castrol analysis
20 and is an issue in the case. But to establish that, an
21 expert can testify as to what the state of the art was. He
22 can state what it is he relied on. That is all 703 says, is
23 that the expert can state the bases that were relied on in
24 terms of expressing his opinion or describing whatever it
25 is. And Dr. Ribbe, or any other competent expert, can
1071
1 testify about what it was that was the state of the testing
2 literature and what tests had been done. And that's what he
3 has done.
4 THE COURT: Yes.
5 MR. PLOTZ: I would suggest that the only one of
6 these three exhibits that we are talking about now which
7 even arguably would go to that is KKK, which was identified
8 initially yesterday and is a collection of various studies
9 using cost per thousand characters or some variant on that.
10 That is the only one that even goes to that.
11 THE COURT: I think KKK is already in evidence.
12 Yes?
13 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, as you suggest, in the
14 case of all three of these exhibits, we are not trying to
15 prove what the cost per thousand characters of a particular
16 chemistry journal was. We are not offering it for the truth
17 of that. It is simply to show that such studies were done,
18 and although we have tried to have the witness refer to
19 them, still the manner in which the data is presented, the
20 statements made in connection with the data, the way it is
21 presented, all of that bears on the state of the art, how
22 people do it, and that's how we are trying to do it. This
23 is not a car case or a medical malpractice case where the
24 witness is relying on a treatise.
25 THE COURT: I think that's sound. I think that
1072
1 if this were an issue in which the expert opinion as to
2 causation or nature of the malady were at issue, then 703
3 would be appropriate. But here the issue on the merits is
4 the methodology used for the purposes of this analysis. I
5 will receive it in evidence.
6 MR. PLOTZ: Judge, let me just make one point.
7 THE COURT: Yes.
8 MR. PLOTZ: Because I think that this discussion,
9 I would like to stress again, would relate only to KKK,
10 which is the discussion of the other studies.
11 LLL, for example, includes a New York Times
12 article from a few weeks ago. It includes --
13 THE COURT: It does? What is that?
14 MR. PLOTZ: Even studies that appear even in The
15 New York Times, your Honor. This is not limited to
16 scholarly articles that appeared in reference to journals.
17 THE COURT: Well, maybe we have to take them on a
18 more specific basis.
19 MR. PLOTZ: I would also --
20 THE COURT: LLL -- all right. LLL, the Garfield
21 articles, I think clearly come within what I said. I think
22 Garfield is sort of the father of this area of analysis.
23 MR. PLOTZ: Yes. He invented it.
24 THE COURT: And what is the newspaper article to
25 which you are speaking?
1073
1 MR. PLOTZ: It starts at page 112 of the exhibit.
2 THE COURT: Page 112. Apart from the other
3 methods in which -- the other areas in which this case is
4 restrained, the strain on the eyesight is much. I think I
5 would exclude 112 and 113 on the basis of, if nothing else,
6 it is too difficult to read.
7 MR. PLOTZ: I will take any basis your Honor
8 finds convenient.
9 THE COURT: Well --
10 MR. PLOTZ: Following that, there is an
11 unpublished study showing some link between U.S. technology
12 and public science --
13 THE COURT: What is that?
14 MR. PLOTZ: I don't know.
15 THE COURT: My question is really to the
16 proponent of the exhibit. What is this Narin?
17 MR. HUVELLE: This is actually the study that is
18 referred to in The New York Times article, as The New York
19 Times article being a user friendly summary of what the
20 article relates to.
21 In that case, there was analysis linking the
22 number of citations appearing in articles that were relied
23 upon in patent applications.
24 THE COURT: But it is an unpublished work; it
25 isn't something that -- is it something that you read and
1074
1 relied on?
2 THE WITNESS: No, sir. It is unpublished. It is
3 a consultant's report.
4 THE COURT: I will exclude that.
5 MR. PLOTZ: Then also included in this package,
6 at page 46, there is a roughly 60-page document which
7 appears to be some analysis some government agency in
8 Australia did about citations to Australian publications,
9 and, again, this is a case about comparisons of journals,
10 and this has nothing to do with the comparison of journals
11 for acquisition decision.
12 THE COURT: No, if it is a published work which
13 supports the proposition that, in a variety of disciplines,
14 in a variety of countries, the methodology, allegedly the
15 same methodology as used by Barschall, is recognized and
16 applied, then it seems to me that it is relevant.
17 MR. PLOTZ: Your Honor, I don't even know where
18 it is published, so I can't even -- it may or may not be.
19 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, the next document in
20 this set by its title says "citation" --
21 THE COURT: I'll tell you what we are going to
22 do. We are going to take a break. We are breaking for
23 lunch. During the break, if you will go through these
24 exhibits on a more precise basis, the exhibits other than
25 those that Dr. Ribbe has identified and testified with
1075
1 respect to, and my criterion then, I think I have just
2 stated it. We will resume at 2 o'clock.
3 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, there are two other
4 exhibits which are a different category of the two reports
5 that this witness prepared in accordance with the Federal
6 Rules. My understanding is it is generally helpful, rather
7 than have the witness spell out every half step he takes in
8 his assessment, to put in the report itself --
9 THE COURT: Exclusion of hearsay -- this is a
10 bench trial, so there is no question whether the jury is
11 going to see it during its deliberation.
12 MR. HUVELLE: Thank you.
13 THE COURT: We will take this up at 2 o'clock.
14 (Luncheon recess)
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
1076
1 A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N
2 2:10 p.m.
3 THE COURT: I have been trying to think, over the
4 lunch hour, of what difference it makes in this non-jury
5 suit on injunctive relief whether LLL is received in
6 evidence or merely marked for identification. What
7 difference does it make?
8 MR. HUVELLE: Well, I think it's easier for the
9 Court and for an appellate court to review the nature of the
10 analyses that have been done before and to judge the
11 analysis by Dr. Barschall in terms of the prior state of the
12 art with respect to these criteria.
13 THE COURT: It's easier if it's received in
14 evidence than if it's merely marked for identification? The
15 conclusion I reached was that it really doesn't make any
16 difference at all and then you get to a philosophical
17 question of whether, if it doesn't make any difference, it
18 comes in or it stays out.
19 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, I guess what I don't
20 know is, if it's marked for identification but not admitted,
21 does the Court have access to it? Can we refer to it in a
22 brief or a proposed finding?
23 THE COURT: What is it that you would -- why
24 would you want access to it? For what purpose other than
25 that it exists? Because it is not being offered for the
1077
1 truth of any of its conclusions, which mineralogical journal
2 is more or less expensive really isn't the issue.
3 MR. HUVELLE: It certainly shows -- I mean, if
4 there is simply testimony that a cost analysis that has been
5 done by unit of measure, you can look at the study and see
6 precisely how it was calculated, how the data was displayed.
7 THE COURT: But Dr. Ribbe has testified to that.
8 He has testified that it has been done and it has been done
9 not only with respect -- by Dr. Barschall with respect to
10 physics, but with all the various other disciplines and so
11 on.
12 MR. HUVELLE: It is also useful because the
13 writers often, as a result of these studies, comment on how
14 it might -- how they see the inferences that can be drawn
15 from it.
16 THE COURT: The more you grope -- and you grope
17 because of the nature of the question -- the more it becomes
18 clear that the difference between it being merely marked for
19 identification and being the subject of the witness's
20 testimony, and it being received in evidence, would be an
21 improper use of it, would be a use of it which would be
22 dependent on the validity or the specific contents of the
23 document.
24 MR. HUVELLE: I think, in addition, your Honor,
25 Dr. Barschall's analysis is fairly straightforward, and if
1078
1 you look at the history of similar analyses, some have been
2 more complicated and try to go further in terms of
3 conclusion, and I think it's helpful, in judging where his
4 study falls in the continuum of such studies, that the
5 modesty of its analysis and conclusions can be judged in
6 that framework. It seems to me an area where the more
7 information we have about what the state of the art is, the
8 better we are in truly assessing what he did and the
9 methodology that he used.
10 THE COURT: I think that the testimony of the
11 witness, which has been quite clear and quite extensive with
12 respect to, these are the publications, is entirely proper
13 and entirely relevant to the defendants' contention that the
14 methodology used by Barschall is not unique but indeed has
15 been utilized in other disciplines and has been recognized
16 in the literature since 1932.
17 I will sustain the objection, with the present
18 state of the record. Obviously, if cross-examination of the
19 witness would alter the role that might be played with
20 respect to these other publications, we will reexamine it.
21 But I will sustain the objection as to LLL and AA and, what
22 else? Do you have a list now?
23 MR. PLOTZ: I believe it is AA, KKK, and LLL.
24 MR. HUVELLE: AA being the writers only.
25 THE COURT: Being the writers only.
1079
1 MR. HUVELLE: Your Honor, we don't disagree with
2 your summary of why we are trying to introduce it. Like
3 many things in this case, it's not really a complicated
4 point here. So why don't we proceed and see if we can bring
5 this to a conclusion soon.
6 PAUL H. RIBBE, resumed.
7 MR. HUVELLE: I just have a couple more
8 questions.
9 I'm sorry. Are you ready for me to resume?
10 THE COURT: You offered a lot of exhibits, and I
11 don't know that the record is clear that I have ruled on all
12 that you have offered. Q --
13 MR. PLOTZ: Q we have not --
14 THE COURT: -- K, and S and T. S and T, are, I
15 guess, Dr. Ribbe's report.
16 MR. HUVELLE: And the supplement. S and T are
17 the report and the supplement. G, K, and Q are charts and
18 graphs.
19 THE COURT: Prepared by this witness?
20 MR. HUVELLE: Yes.
21 THE COURT: Yes. They are received.
22 (Defendants' Exhibits G, K, and Q received in
23 evidence)
24 THE COURT: The objection to S and T is
25 sustained.
1080
1 MR. HUVELLE: You are sustaining it as to the
2 report?
3 THE COURT: To the report.
4 MR. HUVELLE: And then we have AA, LLL, and KKK.
5 THE COURT: I sustained on those.
6 Now, if there is anything in these reports which
7 has not been covered by oral testimony, obviously you are
8 free to elicit it from the witness.
9 DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
10 BY MR. HUVELLE:
11 Q. Mr. Ribbe, in connection with assessments of
12 journals based upon citation data, is there an organization
13 that annually prepares such assessments?
14 A. I mentioned the American Chemical Society, but
15 obviously the premier one is the Institute for Scientific
16 Information, which does this on an annual basis for over
17 4,000 journals.
18 Q. Mr. Ribbe, in connection with this case and as a
19 result of your work on this case, have you formed an opinion
20 as to whether or not Dr. Barschall's analysis is a reliable
21 basis for assessing the cost effectiveness of scientific
22 journals?
23 A. I have.
24 Q. What is your opinion?
25 A. It is reliable.
1081
1 Q. Thank you.
2 MR. HUVELLE: No further questions, your Honor.
3 THE COURT: Mr. Plotz.
4 MR. PLOTZ: Thank you, your Honor. Just one
5 moment, please.
6 CROSS-EXAMINATION
7 BY MR. PLOTZ:
8 Q. Dr. Ribbe, when you did your own study of the 15
9 mineralogy journals, you used the ISI impact factor in part
10 of your analysis; isn't that right?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. When you wrote the article that appeared in your
13 journal, you defined impact factor, didn't you?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. The reason you did that was because you wanted
16 the readers to understand what we're talking about; isn't
17 that right?
18 A. One tries to under -- to define its parameters.
19 Q. The audience for your article were fellow
20 mineralogists, correct?
21 A. Primarily.
22 Q. A sophisticated audience?
23 A. Say that again, sir?
24 Q. Would you consider the audience to be
25 sophisticated?
1082
1 A. Modestly.
2 Q. Would you consider that your audience would have
3 known what the impact factor was without your telling them?
4 A. Some of them might have.
5 Q. And some of them might not have?
6 A. Some of them might not have.
7 Q. Now, in that article, you did not define impact
8 factor as ISI does, did you?
9 A. That's correct.
10 Q. You defined it differently, didn't you?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. In fact -- well, give your definition -- give the
13 definition of how ISI defines impact.
14 A. ISI defines -- we'll take an example -- the
15 impact factor for 1986 of a journal to be the number of
16 articles published by that journal in 1984 and 1985 divided
17 into the number of citations that those articles received in
18 those two years -- I mean, I'm sorry, in 1986.
19 Q. Now, do you have Defendants' Exhibit AA in front
20 of you, which is the collection of your articles?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Could you take a look at your Prestige article,
23 page 451?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. That's where you discuss impact factor; isn't
1083
1 that right?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. In fact, if you look at the preceding page, under
4 the heading "Tools of Assessment," you discuss the whole
5 Science Citation Index, don't you?
6 A. Right.
7 Q. Then you go to the discussion on page 451 of
8 impact factor, correct?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. In the course of your discussion, you quote from
11 the JCR put out by the ISI --
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. -- you quote some of the perceived virtues of
14 impact factor, correct?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. But in the first paragraph on page 451 under
17 "Impact Factor," you define impact factor differently from
18 the way ISI does?
19 A. Incorrectly.
20 Q. Incorrectly.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. In fact, there are two mistakes in the way you
23 defined it, aren't there?
24 A. Well, it's misdefined. I -- I -- I only --
25 Q. Your definition is misdefined, correct?
1084
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. You made a mistake in doing --
3 A. That is correct.
4 Q. Now, this is the study you that spent a year and
5 a half putting together, correct?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. You were trying to be as clear as you could so
8 that your sophisticated audience would know what you were
9 talking about?
10 A. This is an embarrassment, of course, and when one
11 finds these things out, one is duly embarrassed.
12 Q. When did you find this out?
13 A. Well, actually, I had struggled with it in a long
14 time -- a long time ago, but fairly recently I discerned
15 that this is -- I hadn't read the paper for many years, at
16 least seven or eight, and when I found it out I was duly
17 embarrassed.
18 Q. I take it that none of the readers of this
19 journal called this to your attention at about the time this
20 journal came out, did they?
21 A. Unfortunately this was one of those articles that
22 goes through without getting reviewed because it is a
23 presidential address and they grant -- I don't know if it's
24 a courtesy or a disservice -- the privilege of not having to
25 mess with reviews, which in this case would have been
1085
1 helpful, I am sure.
2 Q. So it was not subject to peer review, this
3 article?
4 A. No. That's correct.
5 Q. In any event, you're sure today what "impact
6 factor" is, aren't you?
7 A. Yes, sir.
8 Q. Now, you don't have any question, do you, that a
9 librarian in making journal acquisition decisions needs to
10 consider the needs of his or her community, do you?
11 A. Oh, unquestionably they would have to do that.
12 Q. You need to consider whether a journal is
13 actually used at a particular library; isn't that right?
14 A. Used or would have potential use, sure.
15 Q. In fact, you testified this morning about your
16 library canceling one of Gordon & Breach's journals because
17 it had hardly been used?
18 A. That's correct.
19 Q. It didn't make sense for the library to subscribe
20 to a journal that people in the faculty --
21 A. Would cancel.
22 Q. -- weren't interested in, right?
23 A. They canceled many such journals.
24 Q. You have canceled non-Gordon & Breach journals
25 for that reason also?
1086
1 A. We've canceled many more than one.
2 Q. So no matter how expensive or inexpensive a
3 journal is, a library shouldn't subscribe to a journal that
4 its community doesn't need, right?
5 A. Certainly not.
6 Q. That's --
7 A. Normally -- well --
8 Q. That's not a very earth-shattering observation,
9 is it?
10 A. No, certainly not.
11 Q. Let me -- another way of putting it is, a journal
12 that no one is going to look at in the community is
13 expensive at any price, isn't it?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Now, if the library does not subscribe to a
16 journal but someone in the library community needs an
17 article or needs to have access to a journal, how is that
18 person going to get access to the journal, or to the
19 article?
20 A. Well, yeah, in my experience there are a number
21 of ways. Sometimes colleagues will have copies of the
22 journal that you're looking for. That's one possibility.
23 Another is, we maintained rather enormous reprint files
24 which got so unwieldy after awhile we, in our personal case,
25 had to give it up, but we had a very extensive reprint file.
1087
1 We had a network of being able to call people and ask them
2 to send a copy, or use interlibrary loan.
3 Q. There are costs associated with interlibrary
4 loan, aren't there?
5 A. Yes. It is a cost that I am not aware of because
6 I don't -- they don't ask the question, how much is it going
7 to -- they don't tell me how much it's going to cost.
8 Q. But you're aware there are costs?
9 A. Surely.
10 Q. You understand that, if a journal -- if articles
11 from a journal are ordered with some frequency through
12 interlibrary loan, those costs would obviously increase,
13 wouldn't they?
14 A. Sure.
15 Q. And there might come a point where the cost of
16 ordering through interlibrary loan matches or exceeds the
17 subscription price to the journal?
18 A. Ostensibly, yes.
19 Q. That's true regardless of what the subscription
20 price of the journal is, isn't it?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Is it fair to say that, regardless of the
23 subscription price of a journal, the needs -- use of that
24 journal in the community could make it more cost effective
25 for the library to subscribe as opposed to using
1088
1 interlibrary loan or alternative means of getting access to
2 the journal?
3 A. I don't like the word "regardless" because I
4 think it leaves it open to $20,000 subscriptions which I'm
5 dubious about. I agree with you on principle there might be
6 a breaking point, but there are probable limitations to
7 that. So I would disagree with that regardless of what the
8 price is.
9 Q. Have you done any analysis of the average number
10 of readings of a scientific journal in any given year? Have
11 you done any analysis of that?
12 A. I have -- no, I have not personally.
13 Q. You are aware that such analyses have been done,
14 aren't you?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Mr. King, for one?
17 A. Yes, I am familiar with his work.
18 Q. You are aware of analyses -- withdrawn.
19 Let me ask you about different types of journals.
20 You are aware of what a review article is, aren't
21 you?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And letters?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Original research articles?
1089
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. You are aware that there are journals which are
3 generally devoted to these different kinds of articles?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. You are also aware, are you not, that each of
6 these different types of articles have different rates of
7 citation?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Generally speaking, review articles tend to have
10 the highest rates of citation, don't they?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And letters, generally speaking, come next?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. And, generally speaking, research articles are at
15 the bottom of the pecking order, correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. One of the reasons review articles tend to be
18 cited more is because they collect and analyze the state of
19 some body of research, correct?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Generally speaking, it's easier and more
22 convenient to cite the review article than all the
23 underlying research articles which are cited in the review
24 article, right?
25 A. It's a matter of economics for someone writing up
1090
1 new research. It often is.
2 Q. It wouldn't make sense to you, would it, to make
3 a comparison across these different types of journals
4 without taking into account these different rates of
5 citation, would it?
6 A. I suppose it wouldn't make sense. I don't
7 imagine anybody doing it.
8 Q. So you think it would be wrong to do it, correct?
9 A. With numbers of that sort, I'm not sure what's
10 right and what's wrong. I think it has -- there are so many
11 other factors one has to take into account other than impact
12 factor that I think anyone who is sensible, not a fool,
13 would certainly consider those factors.
14 Q. And the fact that a review journal may have a
15 higher impact factor than an original research journal
16 doesn't say that the review journal is better, does it?
17 A. Certainly is better for certain purposes, no
18 question about that.
19 Q. It says it's a review journal, doesn't it?
20 A. Valuable for review purposes.
21 Q. It is also your strongly-held view, isn't it,
22 that impact factors cannot be used to compare journals
23 across disciplines, correct?
24 A. Should not.
25 Q. The same is true in making comparisons across
1091
1 subdisciplines, isn't it?
2 A. Well, I think that requires a little
3 qualification, because subdisciplines are infinitely
4 divisible. You can get down to specialties in which you may
5 only have one journal and then you're pretty safe -- if you
6 understand what I'm saying -- no comparisons can be made.
7 And oftentimes -- well, the Science Citation Index doesn't
8 do that. They have eight or ten or twelve categories in
9 physics, for example, and they use those regularly.
10 Q. And, in fact, the range of impact factors in
11 these different subdisciplines of physics and the ISI
12 differs from subdiscipline to subdiscipline, doesn't it?
13 A. Certainly.
14 Q. You don't quarrel with the notion that the top
15 impact factor in one subdiscipline of physics might be two
16 and a half, roughly, and another might be 11 and a half,
17 roughly, right?
18 A. It's conceivable.
19 Q. Do you doubt it?
20 A. I --
21 Q. Shall we examine the quantity --
22 A. That's not necessarily. I mean, it's
23 conceivable, so it could happen, certainly.
24 Q. Does that fact make the top journal in the
25 higher-ranked subdiscipline a better journal than the
1092
1 top-ranked journal in another subdiscipline?
2 A. It may.
3 Q. So if, for example, the top impact factor for
4 nuclear physics in 1986 was approximately 11 and a half and
5 the top impact factor that year in mathematical physics was
6 approximately 2 and a half, do you think that fact is a
7 factor to consider in a library's determination of whether
8 to subscribe to the nuclear physics journal as opposed to
9 the mathematical physics journal?
10 A. Could you tell me what type of journal they are,
11 that those two are, what you're talking about, what journals
12 specifically?
13 Q. Let me show you what has been marked Plaintiffs'
14 706G, which is from the 1986 JCR. Do you have that?
15 A. No, I don't, but I have the previous year. And I
16 have already spotted the problem with your example.
17 Nuclear physics and mathematical physics?
18 Q. Well, those are the two I picked, but we can pick
19 others.
20 A. Well, the example of nuclear physics is that you
21 have advances in nuclear physics, which is essentially a --
22 let me see here, just a moment.
23 (Pause)
24 I was thinking I could find those in the
25 Barschall article, but I was unable to do that, that
1093
1 particular one. It's probably in there, but -- I mean,
2 obviously this is possible because there it is. Let's stop
3 there. Why should I argue?
4 Q. Well, the question was, is the fact that the
5 top-rated nuclear physics journal has an 11 and a half
6 impact factor and the top-rated mathematical physics has a 2
7 and a half impact factor, does that mean that a library
8 should select the nuclear physics journal?
9 A. Oh, no.
10 Q. You see on the page before that that the
11 top-rated atomic physics impact factor is about 7.6? That's
12 also different from these other disciplines, isn't it?
13 A. I would have thought there's a strong
14 relationship between atomic and nuclear, but maybe not.
15 Q. So there's a difference you can't explain,
16 correct?
17 A. There is a difference I can't explain. I would
18 very much depend on what is needed in the situation, but
19 surely -- well --
20 Q. You would need to know more than just what
21 these --
22 A. Of course.
23 Q. -- impact factors are, wouldn't you?
24 It's true also that different numbers, rather,
25 different subdisciplines have different numbers of
1094
1 scientists working in them, don't they?
2 A. Sure.
3 Q. And that the smaller fields will tend to have
4 fewer citations, won't they?
5 A. And fewer source items, I would expect.
6 Q. But they will have fewer citations in each
7 article, won't they, because there are fewer readers, fewer
8 workers in the field?
9 A. Fewer citations in each article? I don't know
10 that that holds at all.
11 Q. But you are aware of Mr. King's research on
12 readings?
13 A. Readings don't -- are not directly tied to
14 citations.
15 Q. You heard Mr. King's testimony on this subject,
16 didn't you?
17 A. I did hear it, but I don't recall it all.
18 Q. You have written, haven't you, that there is no
19 doubt that the impact factor has been misused? Haven't you
20 written that?
21 A. Yes, I have.
22 Q. You wrote that, in fact, in -- I think it was the
23 last of your four articles, the one entitled "Value of
24 Serials"?
25 A. Yes.
1095
1 Q. When you wrote that, you cited to an article,
2 correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And --
5 A. I think so -- well, I --
6 Q. Take a look. You have part of AA in front of
7 you, page 44 of your "Value of serials" article?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You cited an article by Archibald and Finifter,
10 F-I-N-I-F-T-E-R?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Correct? They are a pair of economists from
13 William and Mary, correct?
14 A. I don't know. I don't re -- I don't recall, sir.
15 Q. Well, when you cited this article, which is the
16 only article you cited for the proposition that impact
17 factor had been misused, you did so for a reason, didn't
18 you?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And you did so because it's your view that, when
21 scientists cite in the highest traditions of scholarship,
22 they make a thoughtful decision about what to cite; isn't
23 that right?
24 A. Certainly.
25 Q. So you relied on the Archibald and Finifter
1096
1 article for the proposition that impact factor has been
2 misused, correct?
3 A. Sure, plus experience of my own.
4 Q. Isn't it true that Archibald and Finifter wrote,
5 just in the abstract to their article, that "Existing
6 methods of ranking are flawed because they do not account
7 for variations in article length or size of potential
8 readership?"
9 A. I have no recollection of that, sir.
10 Q. Let me find a copy of the article for you.
11 Let me hand you what has been marked Plaintiffs'
12 Exhibit 670, which is a copy of the Archibald and Finifter
13 article, and ask you to take a look at the -- just at the
14 brief abstract and italics on the front page.
15 A. I see it.
16 Q. You agree that that's what they wrote, don't you?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And Archibald and Finifter wrote in this article
19 that you relied on, did they not, that rankings are biased
20 against journals representing smaller fields? Do you see
21 that, at the second paragraph on that first page?
22 A. Are you -- can you fill me in, since you are
23 familiar with this, with whether they are talking about
24 citations or impact factors or what method they are using of
25 ranking here?
1097
1 Q. Well, I think we'll see as we go through this
2 that they talk about both, but --
3 A. OK.
4 Q. Since you're the person who has cited the
5 article, I prefer to be the one asking you the questions.
6 A. Well, I know that you like to ask questions and
7 that's your job, but it's been a long time since I wrote
8 that article.
9 Q. This is the article that you cited for the --
10 A. It is an article that I cited. That is correct.
11 Q. And Archibald and Finifter also wrote, did they
12 not, "More recently, because it has been recognized that
13 different disciplines have different practices in citation,
14 rankings have been limited to journals within a discipline,
15 but, as various researchers have pointed out, this does not
16 correct the flaw. Journals specializing in small fields
17 within a discipline will still be at a disadvantage in the
18 typical citations-based ranking."
19 Is that a statement with which you agree? That's
20 a statement made in the article you cited?
21 A. No, I don't agree fully with it, because there
22 are some arguments to the opposite, that the impact factor
23 actually favors articles which have low citation rates,
24 which have lower citation rates or lower readerships,
25 because when you take the impact factor and invert it and
1098
1 multiply it times your cost factor, you're multiplying times
2 the number of source items in that journal, so that smaller
3 journals are actually in some ways advantaged by the impact
4 factor rather than disadvantaged.
5 Q. Well, we'll come to that in just a moment.
6 But do you agree with the last statement they
7 made on that first stage, "The inconsistent treatment of
8 field journals is a serious problem since such journals are
9 growing in number and importance?"
10 A. What is a "field journal," sir? I'm not sure of
11 the definition of it.
12 Q. A small field.
13 A. I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how to
14 answer that.
15 Q. Well, you cited this article for the proposition
16 that impact factor has been misused, correct?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. So you wouldn't have cited it for the proposition
19 that citations analysis generally is misleading, would you
20 have? Rather, did you?
21 A. Excuse me?
22 Q. Take a look at page 133 of the article. The
23 first full paragraph on page 133 makes reference to
24 Garfield's impact factor, correct?
25 A. Yes.
1099
1 Q. And the authors write, do they not, that "Impact
2 factor corrects for the clear advantage a gross citations
3 ranking affords to larger journals. It is a step in the
4 right direction, but a good ranking should consider several
5 other factors."
6 A. Yes, I see that.
7 Q. And they write, the first is the length of
8 articles, correct?
9 A. That's what they say.
10 Q. Then in the next paragraph, "The size of the
11 field addressed by a given article also influences its
12 potential to be cited," correct?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Now, these are the problems with using impact
15 factor to which you were referring in your article when you
16 wrote, citing this article, there is no doubt that impact
17 factor has been misused?
18 A. Yes. It could relate to these things, these
19 individual things.
20 Q. In fact, as Archibald and Finifter point out,
21 "Rankings of journal impact, that is, citations per article,
22 tend to give journals with longer articles an unfair
23 advantage." Is that something that you agree with?
24 That's --
25 A. I'm not sure, sir. I haven't done the -- any
1100
1 analysis of it myself, and I'm not sure that I see any real
2 data on that in this case.
3 Q. But this is one of the problems in misuses of
4 impact factor that you have cited in your article, isn't it?
5 A. I want to give you a definition of an expert. An
6 expert is one who gains skill through experience. I've had
7 a long time to think about statements that I've made in my
8 articles, and I have -- given the nature of this kind of
9 field, which has developed considerably since I wrote the
10 article, one has to be able to bend a little bit, not
11 necessarily change, but bend a little bit in their
12 interpretation of data, and I don't have all the full data
13 on this one. I haven't reviewed it recently. And I'm not
14 sure that I see any data here.
15 That's their argument. They're entitled to it.
16 It may be true. I haven't investigated it.
17 Q. Well, is what you're saying that your citation to
18 the article maybe doesn't have as much validity in your view
19 today as perhaps it did when you wrote it?
20 A. It's possible.
21 Q. So the value of citations can change over time,
22 can't they?
23 A. That's very clever.
24 I think the way --
25 Q. Can't they?
1101
1 A. The way we look at things does change. The
2 relative way in which we evaluate serials, serial
3 publications, does change with time, of course it does.
4 Q. So you wouldn't put as much weight today on the
5 citation to Archibald and Finifter as you did in --
6 A. 1991.
7 Q. -- in 1991 --
8 A. Probably not.
9 Q. -- when you wrote "Value of serials?"
10 A. Probably not. I would look for other things. I
11 think there are other more important things.
12 Q. So if you were examining, doing a citations
13 analysis or an impact factor analysis of the journal
14 "Scholarly Publishing," where Archibald and Finifter
15 appeared, you think it would be accurate to subtract one
16 from the ranking, to take away this citation?
17 A. Are you suggesting I do that?
18 Q. I'm asking --
19 A. That's a hypothetical question of no particular
20 dis --
21 Q. You don't care to answer it?
22 A. No, I don't care to answer it.
23 Q. Why not?
24 A. You're trying to get me to say something that I
25 might not, on reflection, want to say.
1102
1 THE COURT: All right. Let's move on.
2 MR. PLOTZ: I will.
3 Q. Now, in Archibald and Finifter, if you turn to
4 page 135, they discuss uses and abuses of citations-based
5 journal rankings. Do you see that?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. One of the potential reasons that had been
8 identified in the literature was to help choose journals,
9 correct?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. As to that use, Archibald and Finifter say, do
12 they not, in the third paragraph of that section, that, "In
13 a world which included only equal size, general journals,
14 all charging the same price per page, journals could be
15 selected on the basis of gross citations per dollar.
16 However, we do not live in such a world.
17 "A citations per dollar ranking would not help in
18 choosing field journals. Nor would any system of ranking
19 which did not adjust for field size. Clearly journals from
20 larger fields have more potential readers, and without such
21 adjustments would be ranked as more important for librarians
22 than journals from smaller fields. A library which relied
23 on such a simple system of ranking might totally ignore all
24 journals from a smaller field."
25 A. Yes.
1103
1 Q. Is that one of the misuses of impact factor --
2 A. Certainly.
3 Q. -- on which you are relying when you cited this
4 article?
5 A. I would agree with that.
6 Q. Let me put before you what has previously been
7 marked as Plaintiffs' Exhibit 97A.
8 You were in court, were you not, when Isabel
9 Czech of ISI testified?
10 A. I was.
11 Q. You recall, do you not, that she was asked --
12 withdrawn.
13 Turn to page 4. You will recall this is from the
14 Internet newsletter on serials pricing issues that Ms. Czech
15 was asked about.
16 A. Yes. It's obviously an Internet document, that
17 newsletter, so it appears.
18 Q. If you turn to page 4, there is reference to
19 statements of Eugene Garfield.
20 A. What paragraph, sir?
21 Q. Well, you see his name on the second paragraph of
22 page 4 in capital letters?
23 A. Oh, yes. It's been blotted out here but I can
24 see it.
25 Q. Now, at the bottom of that page, Ms. Czech was
1104
1 asked whether she agreed with the statement, "Impact, he" --
2 meaning Garfield -- "stated is used to describe the effect
3 of citations. Quality evaluation, however, requires more
4 detailed content and context analysis."
5 Ms. Czech agreed with that statement. Do you?
6 A. Full quality in evaluation always involves more
7 than one parameter in this business.
8 Q. Now take a look at the paragraph immediately
9 above that one.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Ms. Czech was asked whether she agreed with this
12 statement of Mr. Garfield: "If an audit determines the cost
13 effectiveness of various publishers, Garfield asked, would
14 librarians make journal purchase decisions based solely on
15 these factors. He hopes not, for not all factors are equal.
16 Such things as whether journals include review articles or
17 research articles need to be weighed, for example, since
18 there is different value received. The size of the audience
19 is another significant factor, as is peer rankings of
20 journal quality."
21 Ms. Czech also agreed with that statement. Do
22 you? Or with those statements?
23 A. Yes, in principle.
24 Q. You agree also, don't you, that the small size of
25 the potential readership for a journal will tend to drive
1105
1 the price of a subscription to the journal up because the
2 first copy cost stated to be -- is being spread over a
3 smaller circulation base?
4 A. Do you mean small circulation or small
5 readership?
6 Q. Small circulation.
7 A. Small circulation increases -- what kind of
8 circulation are we talking about? Are we talking about
9 circulation to libraries?
10 Q. Yes.
11 A. Yes, I would agree.
12 Q. And that's because there are fewer subscriptions
13 to spread these first copy costs over, right?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. You are familiar with that from your time with
16 your own society journal, aren't you?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Now, it's true, is it not, that commercial
19 publishers tend to publish more specialized journals than
20 societies, don't they?
21 A. I think Ms. Czech said she wasn't sure about
22 that, and I guess I'm not either. It may be true, but I
23 don't -- I don't have any documentation on that.
24 Q. Well, it's true that societies tend to publish
25 journals which are of broader interest to their general
1106
1 membership, don't they?
2 A. Yes, if it's a general society, yes.
3 Q. But you believe, don't you, that niche journals
4 can serve a valuable purpose?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. In fact, your own experience at the Mineralogical
7 Society of America was that you wanted your society to be
8 more aggressive about starting journals with narrower
9 focuses, weren't you?
10 A. I was hoping it wouldn't be a narrower focus, a
11 broad focus, but --
12 Q. In more specialized fields, right?
13 A. Not necessarily. It was applied mineralogy, is I
14 think what you were talking about, something in my
15 deposition.
16 Q. Well, you testified at your deposition, did you
17 not, that your society journal had a fixed number of issues
18 and pages to go out every year, right?
19 A. They did at that time, yes.
20 Q. And that you felt there were more papers out
21 there that ought to be published?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. And that they weren't getting published by your
24 society because --
25 A. Not by my society but they were getting
1107
1 published.
2 Q. But you wanted them to be published by your
3 society, didn't you?
4 A. I had hoped for that.
5 Q. And you advocated for that, didn't you?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. In fact, you tried to get your society to start
8 this Applied Mineralogy journal --
9 A. Yes, sir.
10 Q. -- for some time, didn't you?
11 A. Yes, sir.
12 Q. It got -- was deliberated upon for two years
13 within the society?
14 A. 15 minutes.
15 Q. But you tried for two years to get them to do it,
16 right?
17 A. Not exactly, no, but timing is not important
18 here. I did try.
19 Q. And your society didn't do it, did they?
20 A. They did not.
21 Q. And at the same time, you are aware that a
22 commercial publisher was proposing to start up a journal in
23 this very area?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You do think that commercial publishers are more
1108
1 nimble in terms of moving into areas that -- even areas that
2 you believe societies should move into, don't you?
3 A. If "nimble" is meant to be a complimentary term,
4 I'm not sure. I think it's a matter of profit.
5 Q. I just want to make sure I understand. You
6 thought your society should start a journal in applied
7 mineralogy, correct?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Some commercial publisher thought the same thing,
10 correct?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. But you're saying that the motivation of the
13 commercial publisher was profit?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. And the motivation of your society was something
16 else?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. But you thought it was a good thing to start this
19 journal, didn't you?
20 A. I had no quarrel with the idea of having such a
21 journal, but I would have had a big quarrel with it being
22 done by a commercial printer.
23 Q. So you would rather that this journal in this
24 area that you think was important to do not exist than have
25 a commercial publisher publish it?
1109
1 A. In a sense, because we handle articles in applied
2 mineralogy in many different mineralogical journals, and
3 that -- the fact that we don't have one with that title
4 doesn't mean that papers don't get published and that people
5 won't read those papers.
6 Q. So now it's not so important to have started this
7 journal?
8 A. Oh, don't misunderstand me. I -- you're
9 actually, I think you may be deliberately trying to
10 understand me -- misunderstand me, but I think that the
11 journal would have served a purpose for us as a society and
12 as a profession.
13 Q. But only if the society had published it, right?
14 A. No, of course not. You're -- once again we have
15 a twist here. The idea is that we could serve the
16 mineralogical profession with a journal that might take a
17 group of papers, including some that we already published,
18 and put those out, at --
19 THE COURT: Why does the commercial publisher not
20 serve the purpose?
21 THE WITNESS: The commercial publisher would
22 serve the purpose of getting the journal out, but my
23 sensitivity at the time was that the commercial press was
24 charging so much money for their journals that our libraries
25 were in big trouble, and if we -- if the commercial press
1110
1 had issued such a journal, our library would not have
2 subscribed to it because it would have cost on the average,
3 based on data that we had assembled, four to six times as
4 much.
5 THE COURT: Are you saying it would have been
6 better for the discipline had the commercial journal not
7 come into being?
8 THE WITNESS: In fact it did not, sir, but I
9 don't think that it really would have hurt the -- you know,
10 would have hurt us that much, because those articles do get
11 published, somewhere. Everything gets published eventually,
12 unfortunately.
13 Q. Just to be clear, the articles that you were
14 talking about being published are unquestionably articles
15 that you believed were worth being published, aren't they?
16 A. Hopefully.
17 Q. If this journal had not -- well, this journal, I
18 guess, didn't start -- wasn't started by anyone, was it?
19 A. Not to my knowledge.
20 Q. In this particular instance, was it?
21 But in the absence of that journal, one would
22 have to find these articles in a whole assortment of other
23 journals, right?
24 A. Yes, in some others, yes.
25 Q. And some of these articles, which you believed
1111
1 were worth publishing, might not get published as a result
2 also, right?
3 A. I personally would doubt that very much.
4 Q. You wrote in your report that the cost per
5 character ratio was a time-tested bibliometric measure; do
6 you recall that?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. At your deposition, you testified, when you were
9 asked what that meant, that that meant it had been around
10 for three or four years before Barschall, correct?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. That's not a very long time, is it?
13 A. I stand corrected on that deposition testimony.
14 Q. You are referring to this one-page 1933 article
15 that is part of Defendants' Exhibit KKK, correct?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Which compared cost per character of German
18 language, French language, and English language journals,
19 correct?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Between 1933 and the 1980's, a span of about 50
22 years, are you aware of any other surveys using a cost per
23 character formula?
24 A. No.
25 Q. So you were here when Mr. Keller testified?
1112
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And he identified this group of documents, of
3 surveys in Defendants --
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. He testified that Barschall was part of a
6 continuum --
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. -- of --
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Was the continuum that he was referring to, this
11 50-year gap?
12 A. I think that cents per thousand characters or
13 cents per 10,000 words is not the only unit that one can use
14 to compare journal prices with one another.
15 Q. What other unit?
16 A. Dollars per article, dollar --
17 Q. Are you aware of any surveys between 1933 and the
18 1980's which did that?
19 A. Probably not. No, I don't think I am. But there
20 are other ways, and one is dollars per page. Now, you may
21 not state it in those terms, but if you put the subscription
22 price and the number of pages in a survey, you could easily
23 figure that out.
24 Q. You didn't cite to any of those in your report,
25 did you?
1113
1 A. No.
2 Q. Isn't it a fact and -- withdrawn.
3 The various studies in the 1980's that you have
4 testified about were all conducted either by or for academic
5 societies; isn't that right?
6 A. By or for academic societies? I think that's
7 probably true, yes.
8 Q. These studies appeared in the 1980's at a time
9 when the prices of all journals, both society and
10 commercial, were increasing greatly, weren't they?
11 A. They certainly were on a rise and -- as the
12 budgets were going down and as foreign exchange was
13 changing.
14 Q. In fact, didn't the Chemical Society study, the
15 first of the Chemical Society studies, show that 14 journals
16 had at least doubled in price from 1981 to 1985?
17 A. I didn't count them.
18 Q. Well, it's one of the tables that you referred to
19 this morning in the Chemical Society study.
20 A. I don't --
21 Q. Don't you --
22 A. I didn't make a count.
23 Q. So you don't recall whether or not a majority of
24 those 14 were society journals, do you?
25 A. I know one thing, that the rate of increase of
1114
1 society and commercial journals during the period of time
2 were not that much different in terms of the rate of
3 increase, but, of course, the fact that the commercial
4 journals started at a four to five to, in some cases, eight
5 or ten times higher point in terms of dollars, that was the
6 alarming portion -- part. If you double $60 a year to $120
7 and you double $480 to $960, those are considerably
8 different numbers when it comes to allocating budget money.
9 Q. Do you think it was alarming to anyone that the
10 cost per character of Physics Review A increased by 363
11 percent in the five years from 1981 to 1986?
12 A. Is that true?
13 Q. So found the Chemical Society.
14 A. Pardon?
15 Q. So found the Chemical Society.
16 A. I see. Would you refer me to that document,
17 please?
18 Q. Certainly. Take a look at -- you have KKK in
|