Re: Leaving the Emerald City

["Peter Banks" <pbanks@diabetes.org>]

Thanks to Phil for pulling together the pricing data. Many of 
Emerald's other management journals are similarly priced:

The Journal of Management Development  US $10839
Journal of Enterprise Information Management   US $8859
Journal of Managerial Psychology US $8959
...and so on down the line.

Even given a big deal, these are hefty price tags....especially 
when one considers that much more highly cited management 
journals from societies or other for profits, like Blackwell, 
sell for a small fraction of these prices. It is highly likely 
that Phil will find that the spectacular increase in subscription 
fees is correlated with no reasonable expansion of content or 
service.

But Joe's point remains....unless we know costs or production and 
peer review, we can't honestly say whether such pricing is due to 
price gouging or the unforgiving economics of producing 
small-circulation, narrow-focus scholarly journals. What is clear 
is that such pricing--and the business model that leads to it--is 
unsustainable. If this is the best traditional publishing models 
can come up with for niche fields, then they deserve to be 
replaced.

Peter Banks
Publisher
American Diabetes Association
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org

>>> pmd8@cornell.edu 02/21/06 6:43 PM >>>

In order to answer Joe Esposito's question about how a publisher 
can charge so much money for two obscure journals in economics, I 
am putting together a price history for the Journal of Economic 
Studies, and its sister publication, the International Journal of 
Social Economics.

Since our collection of Ulrich's has some holes, I'm wondering if 
someone would be willing and look at prices for these journals 
for the following years: 1991, 1995, 1997, and any years prior to 
1979.  To avoid duplicated work, if you are willing to get these 
prices, please send me a quick email.

The question of how a journal published by the University of 
Strathelyde's Dept. of Economics in Glasgow, Scotland grew from 7 
British Pounds to 6000 BP will be revealed in numbers.  We're off 
to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz....

--Phil