Letter to the editors of the Journal of K-theory
Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you for sending me your text and giving me the chance to send you
my comments before you publish it.  I shall try my best to write in a
way that can reach you.

In such a situation it is worth summarizing as objectively as possible
where we agree and where we do not.  Of course I partially have to
guess.

I guess that we are all concerned about the price of journals.  It was
I who initiated the discussion at the Banff Center in August 2005 which
led to the Banff protocol.  I have talked to all the expensive
publishers I met and blamed them harshly for having such high prices. 
I have talked to many editors asking them to do the step you have now
done.

Our disagreement concerns the way such a step has to be done.  For me
the editing of a journal is a great honor and a high responsibility. 
The honor needs not to be commented: we all like to see our name on the
front page, but there might be different views of the responsibility. 
Editors are responsible for a high quality of refereeing and after the
paper is refereed for immediately passing the paper to the publisher
who is responsible for timely publication (although you are aware of
this, I would like to point out that problems with production are often
related to an enormous backlog - and the main reason for a backlog is
that editors accept too many papers!).  You accuse Springer of mistakes
in the production, and if this is the case, this is completely
justified.  But as long as the contract with the publisher is not
terminated the publisher has not only the duty but also the RIGHT to
publish the accepted papers.  And one has to give the publisher the
possibility to improve their record (this can be checked).

I ask you, was the contract with Springer ever terminated (according to
my experience, such contracts can only be terminated in a written form,
ask for a copy of the corresponding letter and the contract)? If so,
how long is the period according to the contract in which the rights of
both sides are unaffected (normally this is a rather long period)? I
suspect that the rights of Springer are still valid.  If this is the
case (and this can be checked by you) the managing editor has violated
one of the fundamental rules by withholding the papers for a long time
and by offering authors the right to publish a paper submitted to
K-theory in JKT.  For you this might look like an old fashioned formal
point of view, but for me credibility and honesty are indivisible!

We have a second disagreement.  I know from numerous discussions (also
with several of you) that most mathematicians agree that the service
offered by different publishers is of very different quality.  Most of
the people I talked to agree that Springer is one of the best
publishers, who in the past has taken care of the publication of
excellent books and journals.  Most of us complain about their prices,
and I am here in the front row.  But I think that a publisher of this
quality has the right to be treated as a partner, from whom one can
separate, but in a dignified way.  I ask all of you and would be
grateful if you let me know your personal opinion, do you think the way
Professor Bak acted with Springer, is dignified? That is also my
requirement of Springer and I will ask them the same question, if they
think their behavior in this case was dignified.

After this I come to your statement.  There are two parts where I am
dissatisfied.  When you write that it is very important that the
authors do not suffer from this transition it sounds to me dishonest. 
Objectively, all authors whose papers where accepted suffered by the
withholding of their papers.  At least online their papers could have
been published by now in a journal with a good impact factor (a
criterion, I personally hate, but know that it is more and more
applied; your new journal will naturally for a while have impact factor
0).  They could write in their list of publications: accepted by
K-theory, which for all of us counts as a published paper in this
journal.  (If I write a letter of recommendation I naturally look where
the papers are accepted and I would feel misled hearing afterwards that
it appeared in another journal).

The second part concerns your trust in the leadership of Professor Bak. 
I cannot imagine that you all have the opinion that he acted as a good
leader, and trust comes from experience.  Above, I mentioned points
were I suspect a violation of the contract (regulated by law) by Bak,
and you have the possibility to check this.  But even if this turns out
to be false, is he in your eyes a leader to be trusted?

After all my fights for good journals for a fair price I fear that if
you proceed, this process is compromised.  If you can understand my
doubts, please give yourself the necessary time to work towards a good
outcome.

Sincerely

Matthias Kreck
Director
Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics
University of Bonn