Society of Academic Authors: 2003 News Alerts

Steve Ackerman (meteorology)
Peter C. Jurs (chemistry)
John Knox (meteorology)
Frederic H. Martini (anatomy)
John W. Moore (chemistry)
Conrad L. Stanitski (chemistry)
Robert B. Tallitsch (anatomy)
Michael J. Timmons (anatomy)
John Webber (math)

Details

BEING DUMPED? Collegiate Press is looking for titles whose publishers have decided against issuing a revision. Details

OVERSEAS DISCOUNTING. Booksellers are whistling in the wind if they think textbook publishers are accountable ton the federal government for their overseas pricing decisions, according to Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers. Details

MILESTONE. Michael Madigan, John Martinko and Jack Parker wrote the 10th edition of Brock Biology of Microorganisms (Prentice Hall). Details

CATALYST. McGraw is offering a downloads of a writing-aid tool for handheld and other computers to purchasers of its A Writer's Resource. Details

E-BOOK CONFORMITY. Publishers and libraries are calling for standards so every device and all software can read anything produced in e-format. Details

HAKIM ON SCIENCE. Joy Hakim, whose History of US came out of no where to become a best-selling textbook, is well into her new venture -- a science series also based on her stealth pedagogy: Story-telling. Details

CHINA MARKET. Eyeing a 2 million teachers in China who will be teaching Enghliosh in the next decade, McGraw-Hill has launched a major study on what the Chinese EFL curriculums should look like.. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on March 24, 2003

TALBY PRIZE. John Moore, Conrad Stanitski and Peter Jurs' Chemistry: The Molecular Science won a William Henry Fox Talbot Prize from SA2 for excellence in visuals. More Talbys will be announced in coming days. Details

OVERSEAS LEAKAGE. If U.S. publishers are selling textbooks overseas at lower prices, then they're lying about domestic prices being driven up by rising costs and are violating a federal law against deceptive practices. Yes, that's the specter being suggested by a booksellers' attorney who wants to plug the flow of deeply discounted textbooks into the U,S. market from overseas. Details

HOW TO START A TEXTBOOK. Not sure how to proceed to write a textbook and not sure whether he was up to the task, David Rees had always held back. Now well into the process, he is surprised how easy it was to get started. His experience

MILESTONE. William Klug and Michael Cummings wrote the seventh edition of Concepts of Genetics (Prentice Hall). Details

GAGGED LATELY? If a confidentiality clause shows up in your publisher's contract proposal, say no. Negotiation tips

REMEMBER HIM WHEN. Bill Oldsley, who has spent his career in school publishing, mostly recently at Pearson, earlier at Wiley, is the new School Group chief at McGraw. Details

MILESTONE. Sylvia Mader wrote the eighth edition of Biology (McGraw-Hill). Details

DO A GOOD DEED. Extra desk copies? Brother's Brother Foundation can get them into the hands of Third World students. Details

THE SILVERMAN COLLECTION. Several of authoring workshop guru Frank Silverman's how-to books are now in the SA2 bibliography. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on March 20, 2003

TALBY PRIZE. Anatomy authors Ric Martini, Mike Timmons and Bob Tallitsch's Human Anatomy won a William Henry Fox Talbot Prize from SA2 for excellence in visuals. More Talbys will be announced in coming days. Details

MILESTONE. Ansel Sharp, Charles Register and Paul Grimes wrote the 16th edition of Economics of Social Issues (McGraw-Hill Irwin). Details

PLAGIARY. Plagiary can be more than a moral issue. In the SA2 series "Author Voices," intellectual-property lawyer Zick Rubin comments on when "borrowing" crosses into plagiarism. Zick's complete column

RED INK. The departure of Columbia University Press director William Strachan came amid deficits, even though sales were growing. Details

WILEY LIFE SCIENCES. Strength in its life sciences list propelled Wiley to 4 percent revenue growth in its higher-ed list in the third quarter. Details

GLOSSARY. Stumped by book-industry jargon? Like, what's a POD? A packager? An STM? SA2 has the definition for you. Details

TURNAROUND? After months of declining sales, university presses logged a major sales increase in January. Details

DATA BANKS. Spot trends for yourself by checking the growing file of SA2 data banks. Details

MILESTONE. Glen Hanson, Peter J. Venturelli and Annette Fleckenstein wrote the seventh edition of Drugs and Society (Jones & Bartlett). Details

SCOTT FORESMAN. Through an acquisition from Barrett Kendall, the giant Scott Foresman line now has a visual arts component. Details

DOUBLE WOW. E-books here to stay? Sales in January were 1,400 percent ahead of a year earlier. Details

WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR AUTHORING. The SA2 authoring bibliography is approaching 200 entries. If you've read something that would be of value to fellow SA2 members, send the citation and two or three sentences of annotation to SA2,

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on March 18, 2003

TALBY PRIZE. Math author John Webber's Math for Business and Life won a William Henry Fox Talbot Prize from SA2 for excellence in visuals. More Talbys will be announced in coming days. Details

MISS YOUR ALERT? Some SA2 members missed the March 14 e-mail news alert. You can find a complete file of SA2 alerts at SA2 alerts

BUSH TABS AUTHOR. The U.S. Senate is considering the nomination of econ author Greg Mankiw was to chair President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. Details

WRITING YOUR FIRST BOOK. Pulitzer-nominated author Peggy Blanchard describes writing a good dissertation as a good drill for writing a book. Her column on writing your first book: How-to

MORE HOW-TO. Your SA2 site has a growing collection of how-to columns:

Frank Silverman: "Recycling Orphan Titles"

David Rees: "Starting a Textbook Project

Fred Blevens: "Manuscript Reviewing"

IF YOUR LIBRARY CALLS. Libraries and publishers have created a program that makes it easier for libraries to book authors for readings and appearances. Details

FINANCIALS. Here's your quick update on quarterly financial reports from major educational publishers: Details

MILESTONE. Carl S. Warren, James M. Reeve and Philip E. Fess wrote the 20th edition of Accounting Principles (South-Western). Details

TAYLOR & FRANCIS. T&F paid almost $1 billion to acquire CRC Press to expand its U.S. presence. The company now has 800-plus journals and backlist to 26,000 books. Details

AGENCY BANKRUPTCY. Wiley expects losses from the bankruptcy of journal agency Rowecom to take as much as a $3 millon dent in its revenue. Details

HIT IT AGAIN. Hits on the SA2 site have been tracked since May. In the first eight months, the site averaged 13,500 unique visits. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on March 14, 2003

RECORD SALES. Higher-ed book sales neared $4 billion in 2002, up 12.4 percent -- a record. Details

VERMONT DEFIANCE. Rather than risk a Patriot Act raid of its records to check on customer reading habits, a Vermont bookseller has destroyed the records. Details

CUBAN SEIZURE. Journalism textbooks and other titles in a U,S. shipment were seized by Cuba agents before they could get to Cuban readers. Details

SCHOOOL BOOK PRICING. California legislators are following through on promises to require state school officials to factor price into the adoption choices. Details

TEXAS WOES. The Texas Legislature, desperate to balance the state budget, may curtail spending for school books. Details

NEWS SA2 SERVICE: The SA2 site now carries author-related advertisements from members as a no-charge membership benefit. Details

BIG BROTHER WARNING. Posters in Santa Cruz, California, libraries are telling patrons to check out books at their own risk. Posters say the federal government now has a law that "prohibits library workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about you." Details

SOUTH-WESTERN CENTENNIAL. James Baker had an idea for a bookkeeping textbook in 1903. His legacy 100 years later is South-Western Publishing. Details

NO POTTER IN ARKANSAS? Numerous book organizations have rallied against a requirement in Arkansas that kids have a note from mom to check out Harry Potter books. Details

SA2 MONTHLY REPORT. Authors kept up-to-date with four SA2 e-mail news alerts in February and 84 news items on the society's site. Membership passed 1,400, confirming the society as the largest author organization of its sort. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on February 28, 2003

WHITE HOUSE PLEASED. The director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy praised science journal editors for new sensitivity in accepting and editing journal articles that could be misused by terrorists. Details

ADDISON-WHARTON ALLIANCE. Addison Wesley is distributing new Wharton School business scenarios on web-enabled software for student use. Details

DIVISIVENESS AT BERTELSMANN. Rifts and suspicions are diverting high-level energy at global media giant Bertelsmann. Details

BERTEL WHO? While hardly a household name in the United States, Bertelsmann of Germany nonetheless in major player in academic publishing and other media segments. So you thought RCA was short for Radio Corporation of America. Not any more. Book-of-the-Month Club? Home base is in Germany too. Corporate profile

TASINI DOLLARS. Settlement of the author-friendly U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tasini v New York Times reportedly is at hand. Says Tasini: "Authors will be getting money." Details

MIXED INDICATOR. One measure of the book industry's health is how book printers are faring. Not well is the answer, although educational printing contracts are up. Details

AHEAD OF THE CURVE. Use the SA2 data banks to be first to spot academic authoring and publishing trends. Data bank index

HARRY POTTER'S SORCERY. Not even Scholastic's Harry Potter's magic can offset losses in the company's el-hi segment. Blame state budget crises that have decimated school district budgets coast to coast. Details

SOUTH-WESTERN RECYCLING. Seeking a new outlet for business textbooks, South-Western created a new division, Professional Portfolio, for the trade market. Details

HELP SA2 SPREAD THE WORD. Let SA2 tell the world about your latest work as an academic author. For a book, send us the title, co-authors, publisher and copyright year -- and, yes, we'd like a digital copy of the cover if you have it. For articles, please send the title, co-authors, journal, date and pages. Editor@sa2.info

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on February 19, 2003

NOW THAT YOU'VE MEMORIZED YOUR ISBN. The International Organization for Standardization is proceeding with 13-digit ISBNS. It's been 10. Details

TASINI DEPARTURE. Jonathan Tasini, known best for battling publishers for infringing author rights in issuing digital works, is resigning as president of the National Writers Union. Details

SCHOLARLY COOKBOOKS FOR TERRORISM. A group of biology journal editors are scholars say manuscript reviewers must be alerted to watch for content that could undermine security. Details

EXPLAINING THE BLANK SPACES. Elsevier Science responded to scholars' criticism about deleting articles from electronic journals with nary an explanation. Now, in most cases, retracted articles will remain online with an explanatory statement. Details

BAD TIMES FOR SCHOLARS. The American Studies Association is alarmed that government reaction to terrorist threats is aimed at intimidating scholars and chilling scholarship. Details

NO MORE PERSEUS. Perseus is shifting its science, health, parenting and other lists elsewhere in the company and dropping the stand-alone Perseus imprint. Details

WHEN CARROTS BECOME COERCION. Book people have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overruled blocks and filters as a requirement for libraries to get federal funding. Details

PALM-HELD STUDY TOOL. McGraw-Hill introduced study tools for hand-held devices as a free come-on for students using its Irwin business textbooks. Details

DATA BANKS. Spot trends for yourself by checking the growing file of SA2 data banks: Complete index

BIBLIO. The SA2 authoring bibliography is approaching 200 entries. If you've read something that would be of value to fellow SA2 members, send the citation and two or three sentences of annotation to editor@sa2.info. Enjoy browsing

SEARCH ENGINES. Most web search engines now show the Society of Academic Authors. If you forget our web address, just type Society of Academic Authors in the search box. Make a bookmark

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on February 10, 2003

COLLEGE SALES WAY UP. For 2002 college textbooks sales raced 12.9 percent ahead of the year before. What about el-hi? Don't ask. Details

R.I.P: SANDY GRABOWSKI. Sandra R. Grabowski, co-author of a widely use anatomy-physoilogy text, died in Indiana at age 59. She was a co-founder and past president of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society. Details

"MATERIAL DISTRORTION." New York persists with expurgated literary passages on the state regents exam. Civil libertariarians, including book people, respond by escalating their demand to end the censorship. Details

HARCOURT JOB CUTS. The pinks slips have been issued at Harcourt Education. Almost 12 percent of the company work force is gone. Details

AUTHORING TIPS. Please add your tips for successful authoring to the growing SA2 file. Details

PUBLISHER AWARDS. Oxford University Press won seven awards, more than another other publisher, in AAP's scholarly and professional publishing competition.Wiley and the University of Chicago had five. Details

WANNA TALK? For a fee, an Arizona company will you put on its online register of authors and experts. Then wait for a call from Oprah. Details

NEWS YOU CAN USE. In January SA2 posted 74 news items in January, plus a year-end wrap-up of the major academic authoring news of 2002. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on February 5, 2003

HOW MUCH IN BACK-ROYALTIES? If you're a HarperCollins author, you can calculate roughly what you are due if the class-action suit over deeply discounted in-house export sales is approved. Details

ROYALTY ERRORS. What kinds of mistakes do publishers make on royalty statements and what you can do about them. Expert advice

EXCITE THE STUDENTS. Professors can excite students about their textbooks. Here are tips on how to do it. Details

R.I.P.: JOE LIPPINCOTT. The author-friendly publisher at family-owned Lippincott has died in retirement. Details

ANTI-CENSORSHIP INITIATIVE. Twenty public radio stations are carrying a new program on First Amendment with guests including authors who have experienced censorship. Details

BYE, BYE, LES PHILLABAUM. The long-time director who gave Louisiana State University Press a distinctive Southern-flavored list has retired. Details

BERTELSMANN JOURNALS. Seven bids have been filed for the family of BertelsmannSpringer journals and scientific titles, all reportedly less an the US$1.1 billion that had been sought. Details

INTELLIGENT DISCUSSION. The SA2 site is where you find intelligent discussion on authoring issues. Recent contributions to the dialogue: The index

WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR SA2. Enroll your co-authors in SA2 as a gift. It's free to you and to your co-authors. Send a message to us with names and e-addresses: Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on January 31, 2003

FREEDBERG'S LYNX. The Hawkins scholarly book award has gone to David Freedberg for This lavishly illustrated Eye of the Lynx on his 17th-century art discoveries. Details

HARCOURT LAYOFFS. Harcourt Education, reeling from sagging el-hi sales, will hold layoffs to 400 max, mostly in the schools division. Details

THE FUTURE IS TESTING. Pearson says spending on el-hi testing will grow 50 percent by 2006. No wonder that big publishers are increased their stake in testing. Details

HARPER SETTLEMENT. Analysts with the Authors Guild say most authors would do better to participate in the out-of-court class-action settlement over HarperCollins deep discounting on in-house export sales. Details

CONTRACT FILES. What you can do for SA2: Please send a copy of your latest contract to the SA2 Author Experience File. We draw on these documents to identify trends keep members posted on how to negotiate more author-friendly provisions. Your anonymity is assured. Address:

Society of Academic Authors
Route 1 Box 32
Lewiston MN
USA 55952

Better if possible, send the contract with by e-mail: Editor

CONTRACT ALERT. SA2 issued a contract alert on January about disadvantage print-on-demand boilerplate. Details

EARLIER SA2 CONTRACT ALERTS: Index

FAXON JOURNALS. Paid-in-advance journal subscription fees from 600 academic libraries were swallowed up in the Faxon/RoweCom subscription service's machinery, and now there's talk of bankruptcy. Who will be holding the bag? Details

AUTHORING GLOSSARY. Deadended by a piece of book-industry jargon? Like what's a POD? A packager? An STM? SA2 has the definition for you. SA2 authoring glossary: Details

SHOWCASE SUIT. Publishers again are cracking down on copyshops over coursepacks that contain copyright-protected material without permission. Another lawsuit has been filed. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on January 21, 2003

CONTRACT ALERT Print-on-demand technology has rendered out-of-print contract provisions out of date to the disadvantage of authors. Check your contract and negotiate a revision. Details

CONTRACT CLAUSES. SA2 has a growing file of comments to help you in contract negotiations:

Confidentiality provision: Details
Noncompete provision: Details
Satisfactory manuscript provision: Details
Out-of-print provision: Details
Satisfactory manuscript provision: Details
Termination provision: Details

BELLY UP With the collapse of Faxon, a major supplier of journals to libraries, publishers are scrambling to fulfill the subscriptions. It's a mess.Details

THIS IS PATRIOTISM? The feds had wanted to keep their use of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act a secret, but a study now has found 545 incidents of government agents going into library records without warrants to see who had checked out what and what patrons were browsing. Details

TEXAS ADOPTIONS. Right-wingers are trying to steer Texas school districts away from certain social studies books in the current round of adoptions. Details

TUPPERWARE BOOKS. Educational Development Corporations plans to quadruple sales by 2008, mostly through home-based sales agents sponsoring home parties for friends and neighbors. Details

BEST-SELLER BY DECREE. The Chinese Ministry of Education chose China Ventures of Canada to develop a universal psychology text for teacher training nationwide -- 10 million copies. Details

PRINT ON DEMAND. Prometheus is the latest published to adopt print-on-demand technology for press runs of one. Details

MICKEY MOUSE WINS. Big media companies that sought to extend their copyright franchises through the Sonny Bono Act have won. The U.S. Supreme Court says Congress can extend copyright duration as much as it wants. Details

MEMBER ADVERTISEMENT
SA2 MEMBER SEEKING PUBLISHER I have a 200-page book of literary criticism on the postmodern African American fictionist John Edgar Wideman from the perspectives of culture, class and language. The book, approximately seven chapters, examines Wideman's early three modernist writings and provides in each chapter a general treatment of each book using critical as well as black cultural theory. The book is designed for scholars and graduate and undergraduates. If you can steer me to a publisher that might e interested, please pass your message on through SA2

SA2 MEMBER ADS. The SA2 site carries author-related advertisements from members as a no-charge membership benefit. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on January 16, 2003

HARCOURT LAYOFFS. Letters have gone out to 15 percent of Harcourt Education's 3,000 employees with details for early retirement. If not enough of them accept, there will be "involuntary terminations." Details

UP, UP AND AWAY. College textbook sales ran 16.5 percent ahead of a year earlier in November. El-hi sales were gloomy. Details

MCGRAW WEB SUPPS. McGraw-Hill chose ecollege web tools for adopters to integrate McGraw's college web supplements into online courses. Details

A BIGGER HOUGHTON. Houghton Mifflin, fresh from rough seas in the Vivendi turmoil, wants to expand in coming months through acquisitions and internal growth. Details

PEARSON, PEARSON EVERYWHERE. In case anybody missed that Pearson owns 50-plus educational imprints, the word "Pearson" now will go on the spines and copyright pages of every book ahead of the imprint name. Hence, Allyn & Bacon becomes, get ready for a mouthful, Pearson Allyn & Bacon. Details

ALITERATES. Illiterate people can't read. Aliterate people can but don't. Bleak best-seller sales figures for the holidays suggest a growing societal problem with implications for textbook authors. Details

CONTRACT CLAUSES. SA2 has a growing file of comments to help you in contract negotiations:

Confidentiality provision
Noncompete provision
Satisfactory manuscript provision
Termination provision

SA2 MEMBER ADS.The SA2 site carries author-related advertisements from members as a no-charge membership benefit. Details

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SPECIAL NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on January 13, 2003

HARCOURT SLASHING JOB. Ailing el-hi publisher Harcourt Education told employees that major job cuts are ahead. Early retirements are being encouraged but won't be enough. "Involuntary terminations" loom by the end of the month. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on January 13, 2003

HOUGHTON KEPT AUTHORS. Chief executive Hans Gieskes said Houghton kept to business during the transition to new ownership after the Vivendi disaster: "We didn't lose one author." Sales unaffected, he says. Details

HERE TO STAY. The investment groups that bought Houghton Mifflin insist they didn't do it for a fast profit turn-around. Details

TALBY PRIZE: The panel of judges for the SA2 Talbot Prize for visual excellence has completed it work. Tabulation of ratings and comments is under way. Details

PATRIOTIC EXCESSES. Congressman Bernie Sanders plans legislation to limit the FBI's use of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act to spy on what people buy at bookstores and check out at libraries. Details

COLLEGE DEGREE IN BOOKS. Portland State has created a publishing option in its graduate writing program. Details

SA2 NEWS TALLY. SA2 members received three e-mail news alerts in December with links to stories on the SA2 site. The site carried 83 items in the month. Details

BERTELSMANN-NAZI TIES. The Wall Street Journal has uncovered documents that Reinhard Mohn, who runs Germany-based publishing giant Bertelsmann, signed false documents that claimed the company was at odds with the country's Nazi regime during World War II. Details

MERGER HIATUS. Merger-and-acquisition experts can't see any major book industry deals. What's ahead? Some shaking-out of recent acquisitions by the big companies. Also, some consolidations among second-tier companies. Details

SA2 DATA BANK. Did your publisher engage in any 2002 mergers or acquisitions? Details

FAVORITE AUTHORS. Who are Wiley's favorite authors? The company lists its best-selling authors in its quarterly reports to investors. Details

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NEWS ALERT
Issued to SA2 members by e-mail on January 6, 2003

YEAREND REVIEW: Houghton authors had a rough 2002 with the implosion of parent company Vivendi, but the things turned copasetic for the new year. The Vivendi mess was the lead news story of the year in academic authoring. The Top 10 list

ALL THE MERGERS: Most active on the M&A front in 2002 were McGraw, Reed, Scholastic, Thomson, Wiley, Wolthers. Details

SA2 ARCHIVE: SA2 offers the most complete news service focused on academic authoring. Tap into the alert index

IT'S OUR MONEY: Under pressure, the Copyright Clearance Center revealed that it took a 15 percent commission as a processing fee on money recovered from Denmark for authors and other U.S. copyright owners -- far more than many collection agencies in other countries take. Details

BIGGER ADVANCES: Yale University Press is opening the purse strings for bigger advances as it moves to build a list of titles that are both scholarly and popular. Details

MCGRAW PROSPECTS: Despite the sputtering economy, McGraw-Hill sees earnings growth of at least 7 percent in 2003. Details

PEARSON PROSPECTS: Pearson sees 7 percent more revenue in 2003 than 2002 despoite lagging el-hi sales in the United States. Details

REED PROSPECTS: Reed Elsevier sees double-digit earnings growth in 2003, especially with its Harcourt unit in the United States. Details

BYE, BYE TO PAPER FLURRY: If you're a multi-publisher author with an agent for your authoring, let the agent worry about sorting through all those 1099 forms from publishers. The IRS has changed its mind. Details

SA2 DATA BANK: No other author organization maintains better data for its members than SA2. Data bank index

NEWS SERVICE: The SA2 site now carries author-related advertisements from members as a no-charge membership benefit. Details

BIBLIO: The continually expanding SA2 authoring bibliography is aproaching 150 entries. Enjoy browsing: Details

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Earlier alerts: | 2002 |