OA, print and that SUV

[Richard Feinman <RFeinman@downstate.edu>]

Thanks for these comments but I have trouble with the analogy:

Like the individual who declines to purchase an SUV to safeguard 
future generations from global warming, this publisher is working 
to ensure the capital base for scholarly communications.

I think correct would be the individual who decides to purchase 
an SUV to ensure the capital base for auto manufacturers.

Basically, paraphrasing Joe's comments, a manufacturer that 
produces an online version and a print version is duplicating 
information in two channels. Libraries that might not subscribe 
to the bound volume if it were online are in many cases, forced 
to support this duplication.

There is convenience and other features to printed material. 
But if few people use it and most get an online TOC, then it is 
the continued production of glossy covers and slick printing that 
is wasteful if not actually contributing to global warming.

That is why I agree with Joe, and everybody (although as I 
mentioned I underestimated the impact) that OA will remove the 
need for many print journals.  General responsibility for 
publishers is to offer OA. Financial responsibility requires that 
they find a way to get payed for it.  The question is, as raised 
previously in the list, who is currently paying?  A rational 
approach would be to see how all the payers could be brought 
together to support what must inevitably happen.

As for my prospective publisher, an important point is that, just 
assuming that the proposed bound volume is going to be popular, 
they see greater profit and sometimes higher price (or maybe just 
less risk) in selling to libraries rather than individuals (who 
might not care if the material is a reprint of something on 
line).

The meaning for a library is that collections like Annual Reviews 
of..., Annals of..., Progress in... may be designed as specific 
avenues for forcing libraries to pay for material that might be 
better done (and frequently is duplicated) in a different 
channel.

Regards,
RF

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Richard D. Feinman, Professor of Biochemistry

(718) 871-1374
FAX: (718) 270-3316


"Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>
Sent by: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
03/02/06 06:39 PM
Please respond to
liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

Subject
Re: Question about open access and print

David's reply is from the point of view of the librarian.  The 
publisher's perspective is different, but the outcome is not 
necessarily at odds with the librarian's.

For a publisher (or the vendor of any product or service) the 
term of art is "channel conflict."  This conflict occurs when the 
sale of something in one form or venue undermines its sale in 
another.  Sometimes multiple channels and forms can be mutually 
supportive, sometimes not.  The classic case of this is the fear 
of yesteryear on the part of book publishers, who believed that 
feature films would undercut the sale of a book; of course we now 
know the opposite to be true for these particular channels and 
forms.  On the other hand, tickets for theatrical releases now 
appear to be declining because of the widespread availability of 
DVDs and wide-screen TVs.  So there is an art to determining when 
channel conflict will occur, and vendors don't always get this 
right.  Some publishers continue to license journals to 
aggregators like EBSCO and Gale, but there have been some 
high-profile defections recently, which were likely driven by 
channel conflict.

This can indeed have large implications for Open Access.  To the 
originating publisher (that is, the organization that financed 
the creation of the intellectual property--the Elseviers, the 
Wileys of the world) OA is simply another channel.  It can in 
some instances enhance the sale of toll-based publications (which 
is probably mostly the case today in the STM journals world), and 
it can in some instances cannibalize those sales (in my view the 
inevitable outcome of OA, for which reason no publisher with 
financial responsibility should support OA in any form or to any 
degree, as its cumulative effect is pernicious).  But, again, 
this is an art, and not everyone will share Richard Feinman's 
publisher's judgment.

Some will criticize Richard Feinman's publisher for being 
short-sighted and mercenary, but, romantic that I am, I prefer to 
think of this publisher as visionary and mercenary.  Like the 
individual who declines to purchase an SUV to safeguard future 
generations from global warming, this publisher is working to 
ensure the capital base for scholarly communications.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Goodman" <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: Question about open access and print

> Dear Richard,
>
> The prospective publisher is right.
>
> You are contemplating dual publication, and the sequence you
> propose is regarded by librarians somewhere between a nuisance
> and a disaster. If the papers were published in a formal
> journal, OA or not, electronic or not, they have been
> published.  if the submissions to the conference are peer
> reviewed, and in most good conferences they are, they have been
> published in a peer-reviewed journal, and further publication
> is unnecessary.
>
> If those attending the conference wish a fancy book as a
> rememberance, they are perfectly free to pay for vanity
> publication, but there is no reason anyone else need bother.
> No library will deliberately buy it. Those that buy it by
> accident, generally because the publisher advertisements
> delibrately do not mention the duplication, often warn other
> librarians on appropriate subject lists.
>
> There are better ways. Many scientists do not regard most
> conference publications as formal publications, and post only
> the slides. They then prepare a more elaborate if less colorful
> paper, with a proper review of the literature [etc.], and
> submit it to a journal under a slightly different title to
> avoid confusion, mentioning that some of the material was
> previously presented at a conference. The reviewers will
> probably check, and if too much of the data has been previously
> presented with the same graphs, will reject the paper.
>
> Alternatively, if the conference does have a formal proceedings
> with all the papers, which is properly indexed by the A&I
> services, why would one try to publish the same paper in a
> journal as well?
>
> Most will publish a different paper for a journal, typically
> with additional data, that will refer to the conference but
> does not duplicate it. People with a great deal of data
> sometimes assort them in ways that are diffcult to fathom, but
> a journal referee should insist on some clarity here as well.
>
> Peer review has many uses, and preventing duplicate publication
> is certainly one.
>
> This has nothing to do with open access. I would not acquire a
> book that duplicated a journal whether or not one or both is
> OA. My practice when such was encountered was to not buy the
> book, and also cancel the journal, figuring that if it had to
> go to such lengths to get content, the content was unlikely to
> be of much value.
>
> Dr. David Goodman
> Associate Professor
> Palmer School of Library and Information Science
> Long Island University
> and formerly
> Princeton University Library
>
> dgoodman@liu.edu
> dgoodman@princeton.edu