The POC compromise will be put to a vote before the APS Council on April 23. This issue engendered a lively discussion. Each journal should carry its own weight, but do it in its own way. PRC and D cannot survive with page charges because of the competition from other journals. The long term trend is that as the price goes up, the number of library subscriptions goes down.
Page charges are just one of many problems.
During the past three years, PRD has made remarkable progress in recapturing lost authors. As proof, he cited the fact that in 1978, the ratio of papers published by major North American institutions in PRD to NPB was 4.5. This number decreased to 1.7 in 1982, where it held steady until 1991. After the pilot project was instituted in 1991, the number rose to 4.1 in 1993. The APS is facing hard choices.