Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal

[Mark Funk <mefunk@mail.med.cornell.edu>]

Steven Harnad wrote:
> but it is also a fact that all objective evidence to date is *contrary*
> to the hypothesis that self-archiving leads to journal cancellation and
> collapse:
In reply, Joe Esposito said:
> JE:  This is a very unfortunate statement.
[snip]
> But to say to a publisher, "Give this away; you're not going to
> feel it at all," is simply ridiculous.
Joe conflates self-archiving with a publisher giving it all away. But take
a look at self-archiving vs. a library subscription through a user's eyes.
There is obviously a convenience factor in going to a publisher's journal
site; the PDFs look exactly like the printed version; and search results
from databases lead a user directly to the site. These are heavy
advantages for users. Discovering self-archived articles is much harder;
they don't look like the printed version; and databases don't point to
them. Truly only the most dedicated users, with no access to the
publisher's site, are currently using archived papers as a substitute for
the publisher's version.

In form and convenience, self-archived papers can perhaps more closely be
compared to how the National Academy Press has been "giving away" their
books in electronic form since 1994. Although the pages look exactly like
the printed book, only a single page can be printed at a time. So the
books, although free, have an inconvenience factor similar to
self-archiving. The NAP did a study on how this policy affected sales:  
http://aaupnet.org/resources/mellon/nap/final_public.pdf

The study found that "although it is clear that free downloads cannibalize
potential sales, under certain conditions (when the fit of the book's
content to the customers' needs is generally high), the market expansion
aspects of this feature can mitigate this loss."  Page 6

In addition, "if respondents downloaded the free page-by-page content,
they were more likely to purchase than when they did not download any
content." Page 6

"Implications of Free Content. It is clear that, in addition to increasing
the penetration and circulation of NAP's content to customers with lower
purchasing power, free content has a positive impact of increasing the
likelihood of purchasing any content. The key lesson from this part of the
analysis is that an organization keen on selling digital content should
provide features that help customers interact with the medium. Free
browsing, free sampling features, and/or page-by-page downloading help
reduce risk and can also assist customers in becoming familiar and
comfortable with digital books. Lower-quality free content will lead not
only to higher sales of e-content but also to higher sales of the printed
format." Page 7

While there are obvious differences between self-archiving and the NAP's
free e-books, the inconvenience factors (single page printing vs. buying
book and self-archived articles vs. library subscription)  are similar.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the NAP found evidence that "giving it
away" was not ridiculous. While I doubt that self-archiving will lead to
an increase in journal subscriptions, I see no evidence it will bring
about significant cancellations.

--
Mark Funk
Head, Collection Development
Weill Cornell Medical Library
1300 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021
mefunk@mail.med.cornell.edu