Volume 1, Number 5
Dec 1988

Putting the Fire Out: American Psychological Association Conversion to Acid-Free Paper

As publishing expenses increased and subscriptions declined in the 1970s, the American Psychological Association (APA) was forced to examine a publishing program that in 1980 had crossed the edge and begun to operate at a deficit. At that time, APA was publishing 18 journals and 120 journal issues per year. This publishing effort consumed over 88 million sheets of paper, and paper costs were an obvious point at which to begin discussions of expense management.

No information was available concerning the paper used for the early issues of APA publications, but the copies examined, some of which were printed in the late 1800s, were holding up well. During the 1966-1981 period, the journals were printed on 50 lb. paper with a pH of 6 and low groundwood content. The shelf life of that paper was estimated to be 100-125 years.

The volatility of the paper market in the 1970s, particularly for paper that was low in groundwood content, had caused a number of problems for printers and publishers attempting to anticipate future budget needs and to plan appropriately. This was also the time of the first big jump in second class postal rates, and the weight of paper became another factor to consider.

APA sought advice from printers and paper manufacturers concerning what alternatives might be available that would be less expensive on a per-page basis, would be more stable in price and availability, and would be lighter in weight. The information at that time suggested that there was a lighter weight paper available with adequate opacity and a proven history of stable prices. APA had actually been using this paper for its association journal and for its abstracts publications for a number of years. That paper was, however, higher in groundwood and acidity.

The APA Publications and Communications (P&C) Board examined the costs and benefits of such a paper change in June of 1981. The paper being considered had excellent opacity, a pH of 4.7, 50% groundwood content, and a shelf life of 35-40 years. Given an estimated savings of $50,000 a year by changing paper and the alternatives available-cutting pages and raising subscription prices--the Board approved a change in paper in June 1981. There was no doubt at the time that this was not an ideal solution to the problem facing the publication program, but the economics were compelling.

The economics of that time were real enough, but economic realities change and so do the choices made to deal with them.

Conservation movements and federal legislation began catching up with the paper industry in the 1970s and many paper manufacturers discovered the advantages of acid-free paper production, resulting in more consistent availability and pricing. The library community began discovering the long-term, and in many cases not so long-tem, effects of printing on acidic paper as its collections deteriorated and the movement to inform and to encourage publishers to use acid-free, groundwood-free papers got under way.

At the American Psychological Association, the response to the change in paper cam fairly quickly and the entire question of archival quality became an ongoing item for discussion and examination beginning in October 1981 just six months after the decision to downgrade paper.

The champion for a change in paper, a change that would mean not a return to the paper of the 1970s, but a change for the future to a paper that would meet developing standards for paper permanence , was an individual. Dr. Victor Laties of the University of Rochester managed to make sure that the subject of paper was included an every agenda of the P&C Board biannual meetings during the next four years. He did this by continuing to raise questions about the assumptions used to make the original decision and by doing additional research on his own in the printing, publishing, and paper industries. His efforts forced the APA staff and governance to keep abreast of developments in the library community and in the paper industry an a more timely fashion than might otherwise have been the case. The assumptions he questioned were:

That libraries would only hold hard copy versions of journals for a limited time, that they would all be changing over to Microfilm versions before the journals deteriorated beyond use. Microfilm is, of course, a valuable archival tool for librarians, but APA discovered that paper remains for many libraries an equally important and more accessible archival resource.

That the paper manufacturing realities of the 1970s would remain constant. What we found was that paper manufacturers were converting to produce acid-free paper and that the resulting products were similar in cost to the acidic stock that had been produced. With the increase in acid-free paper availability, the pricing became more stable and predictable.

That acid-free paper would continue to be available only in higher weight papers and that a change would mean increased postage charges. However, as paper manufacturers strove to meet EPA pollution standards and to meet the demand from publishers and printers, they examined the old paper lines and developed new ones. The opacity of lighter weight papers was improved to make them more attractive to journal printers.

In October 1984, APA voted to print the 17 primary journals on acid-free paper commencing with the 1986 issues. Some savings in production costs were to be initiated at the same time by increasing the journal trim size and by improving the type specifications to allow for more efficient use of pages. The Board voted NOT to change the paper of the largest circulation journal, the American Psychologist, that was mailed to all association members for Contemporary Psychology, a journal of book reviews. What was subsequently discovered is that a minor change in paper for the American Psychologist made in 1986 actually resulted in a change to acid-free paper for that journal as well. The paper for the book review journal will be changed shortly so that all APA primary and special journals will be published on acid-free paper.

The question that remains, for APA and many other publishers, is whether or not the paper being used complies with the other portions of the paper permanence standards. The paper manufacturers assure us that their paper would it probably" meet the standards for durability, but that testing is expensive and time-consuming and they have not been doing it. The infinity symbol does not appear on APA journals and will not until the durability of the paper used can be documented. In the meantime, the following notation is printed at the bottom of Cover Two on APA journals:

Effective with the 1986 volume, this
journal is printed on acid-free paper.

There are 20 years of APA journals on acidic paper, five of them on highly acidic paper. The fire is smoldering there, but APA is at least not adding any additional fuel for the blaze that may come.