Dear Colleagues from the AMS Council,

In quality of President of one of the French mathematical learned societies, the Mathematical Society for Applied and Industrial Mathematics, representing a large community, I can only witness the rising concerns around the pricing policy with which our scientific institutions have to comply to keep their subscriptions to MathSciNet running. In the last months, our national network of mathematics libraries, which does a very helpful job in negotiating these subscription rates, has expressed serious worries about the annual 3 percent increase that French universities and institutes have experienced in recent years, which turned into a 6 percent increase this year. The subscription renewal period is now approaching, and the French mathematical community will soon have to decide whether it is able or not to keep the pace of this pricing policy.

MathSciNet is a tool that many of us find fundamental in several aspects of our work, and our colleagues are definitely attached to it. However, the economic pressure on French science institutions is nowadays extremely strong, and the amount of money devoted to bibliographic resources becomes tighter every year.

We understand that in a competitive environment the AMS subscription policy may evolve, but to our community this evolution looks fairly opaque and not necessarily justified, and its future seems at best uncertain. I am therefore writing to you in the hope that something can be done to forestall a conflict that would be harmful to everyone.

Yours sincerely,
T. Horsin
President of the SMAI.