For decades, this journal publishing business was steady and predictable. There were three things about a journal that all tended to go well or go badly together: the quality of the papers it attracted, its circulation and its cost per volume. ORSA and TIMS, INFORMS' predecessor societies, became good at producing high-circulation journals that were inexpensive and that attracted the best papers in their fields. Now, however, the journal publication business is changing rapidly and in ways that are hard to anticipate.

Two things are very different. First, we are moving towards electronic publishing. While the change from year to year is slower than some had anticipated, there can be little doubt that in a decade or two the vast bulk of the circulation of scientific literature in our field, and in others, will be electronic rather than by print. Going electronic affects costs, our ability to charge (and what we charge for) and the ability easily to access cited papers. Electronic journals have larger fixed costs than print journals (electronic workflow systems, file conversions, electronic hosting, reference linking through CrossRef and archiving in addition to the traditional "first copy" costs, such as copyediting and composition), but much lower variable (distribution) costs. We need to cover these fixed costs. Electronic publications are more easily shared, and we therefore risk losing paid circulation. At the same time, our subscription product (for individual subscribers) has changed from a copy of this year's volume of the journal that you can keep as long as you like to a year's access to the entire journal. With our 11 subscription-based journals, we are competing with commercial publishers who have as many as 1,500 journals. These competitors are both pricing these in large non-negotiable packages and integrating the cross referencing of articles across all of their journals.

The other problem is that academic libraries, our main source of revenue, are badly squeezed financially. Not only are total library budgets under pressure, but for many years the commercial journal publishers have been raising their prices much faster than inflation and than scientific societies have, and their journals have now become very expensive. For example, a year of the European Journal of Operations Research published by Elsevier now costs libraries eight times what Management Science does and more than 11 times what Operations Research does, even though its papers are cited less frequently. Pricing their journals in packages allows these publishers to charge high prices for journals the libraries must have while ensuring distribution of lesser journals and keeping their incremental costs low. The university libraries are, understandably, in rebellion and seeking political redress. We run some risk of suffering collateral damage in their war with the publishers, even though our product is cheaper and we attempt to differentiate ourselves as academic and nonprofit.

Both of these situations need careful monitoring. Our Board, our Publications V.P. Fred Murphy, our Publications Committee and our INFORMS publications staff headed by Patricia Shaffer are all paying close attention to developments.

In addition to monitoring the situation and being prepared to react, INFORMS and its members need to do several things. First, we need to be clear about the difference between our mission and that of our commercial publisher competitors. Our goal is furthering our sciences, not extracting money from libraries to reward stockholders or to subsidize other activities. We need to live up to that and to communicate that to libraries and, if necessary, to Congress. Second, we need to continue to add to our portfolio of journals when there is a community of scholars in our field doing valuable work, just as we did recently when we started Decision Analysis.

You, our members, can help by favoring our journals with your submissions, and with your volunteer efforts in editing and reviewing papers. If you think that there should be a new journal in our field, bring this to the attention of our Publications Committee. Subscribe and use INFORMS journal content in the classroom or professional projects. You can also help by letting your deans or employers and your librarians know that our journals are important to your work and by making sure they appreciate the relative value of our journals.

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