RE: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium

["David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>]

Joe

Indeed, business people talk to their customers.  But what 
happens when the answers they get fail to match the behaviour of 
their customers?  Perhaps it suggests that the wrong questions 
were asked.

This study is being put forward as evidence that a six-month 
self-archiving mandate will put subscription journals out of 
business.  The actuality is that a number of journals which give 
away their content (in their final form) after six months are 
continuing to thrive.  There is a massive mismatch between what 
the study predicts and what is happening in reality.

When a model fails to predict the data then I think it fails as a 
model.  It would be intellectually honest for the Publishing 
Research Consortium to withdraw this summary paper and, if they 
are serious about adding to the body of evidence, revising the 
methodology in light of the many criticisms made by the library 
community.  Then we might have something worthy to be called 
'evidence'.

David C Prosser PhD
Director
SPARC Europe
E-mail:  david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk
http://www.sparceurope.org


-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Esposito
Sent: 21 March 2007 21:45
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium

David,

The answer to your question is, Because this ("We would cancel") 
is what librarians say when asked the following question:  If all 
the articles in final form from a subscription-based journal were 
available for free, would you continue to subscribe to the 
journal?

There are important words in that question:  "all" and "final 
form."

I really cannot understand how you can persist in insisting that
people will pay for what they can get for free.

Businesspeople talk to their customers.

Joe Esposito