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Re: Subscription to Open Access Transition

Greetings:

The claim that OA doesn't lead to cancellations in Heather's email below is being made in the context of gold-OA rather than green-OA (OA self-archiving) as she is discussing hybrid journals which make some of its content OA. I understand reasonable people may disagree on whether green-OA may or may not lead to cancellations, but I am not sure that these people will also disagree on whether gold-OA will lead to cancellation.

OUP recently revealed information about their conversion of their Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) journal to OA. They kept the subscription rate intact and are providing a print edition of the journal to those who keep their subscriptions. They experienced 30% cancellation in the first year (2005). I was also told that they have experienced anther 30% in the second year (2006). Although I am not sure if this is a 30% of the original 100% or of the remaining 70%, it is true in both cases that half or more of the subscribers canceled in the first 2 years when the journal went OA. The only thing surprising to me is why only about 50% cancellations in the first 2 years; I would have expected a near 100% cancellations. I would be very surprised if they don't reach a near 100% cancellations is a couple of years from now.

Some may argue that this might be the case when the whole journal goes OA and not hybrid where only some percentage is gold-OA. That cancellations will not be experienced in these hybrid cases. I understand that this is what Heather was arguing for in her email message below. I simply don't think so. Cancellations to OA journals isn't likely to be a binary phenomenon, zero or near zero cancellations until you reach 100% or near 100% gold-OA.

My feeling is that many people would agree it makes sense to have significant cancellations once a journal converts to OA. I may be wrong, but I would be interested to hear from people who think otherwise. (I am assuming, like in the NAR case that the subscription rate remains essentially the same and isn't reduced dramatically with the OA move.) Isn't this implying that when a journal is OA by self-archiving (or most of it anyway like in physics) that those who continue to subscribe do so because they have the perception (whether that is perception is true or not) that the OA material isn't an adequate substitute for the journal materials that you get from the publisher website? Heather says that "faculty know which journals are important in their field, and will not recommend cancellations due to open access." Isn't this the case for NAR? It is a first rank journal in its field and is published by a highly respected publisher. Surely the faculty who use the journal know the journal is important. This didn't prevent the cancellations, did it?

Why would you continue to subscribe to a journal that is freely available online (gold-OA)? You don't, as the 50%-60% of the NAR subscribers are telling us, and as I believe most of the remaining 40%-50% will be telling us in the next couple of years. Why would continue to subscribe to a journal that is freely available online (green-OA)? May be because you don't trust the material from the author websites or subject/institutional repositories. May be because it is easier to locate the material on the journal website and download it when needed. May be because of something else. But it isn't because your faculty realize that the journal is important. The journal doesn't become less important when it goes gold-OA but stays as important when it goes green-OA. The journal is perceived (correctly) to be truly available online with no subscription needed when it goes gold-OA while it is perceived (correctly or incorrectly) not to be truly available online with no subscription needed when it goes green-OA.

I have one last comment on the subject. Many people assume that it is comforting to the publishers to know that librarians will not cancel their subscriptions when the journal material is available online for free (via self-archiving of author manuscripts, self-archiving of publisher version of the articles, deposit in highly functional subject repository like PMC, etc.). I don't really believe this to be the case (the non-cancellation claim), but if I did, I would be anything but comforted. As an entrepreneur, I'd like to work in a well functioning market. A market where libraries and institutions pay the publishers for something they get in return for their own readers. Continuing to subscribe to a journal because it is a great journal regardless of whether or not you need a subscription to read the material published in the journal reduces the whole system to a system of voluntary payments. Should that be the case, I would not want to continue investing my money and effort into it.

I want to get paid for the toll access journals we publish because those paying us need to read these journals. They pay to be able to read them, not because they appreciate us being able to publish such great journals that they really can read whether or not they made their payment. I want to get paid for the OA articles we publish because the researchers, their institutes, and/or their research funders are getting something in return for their money. Their articles being peer-reviewed, affiliated with a particular journal with an established particular quality level, copyedited, XML coded, their references validated and linked, hosted and served online in a functional online system that enable efficient dissemination of content, etc, etc. That is the way I want to be getting our revenue: selling content to consumers who need to buy it to consume it or selling services to authors who need to consume such services that get their articles properly refereed and properly edited and embedded into the science literature. Otherwise, we don't have a functioning market and I wouldn't be willing to continue my current activities.

Best regards,

Ahmed Hindawi
http://www.hindawi.com

David Prosser wrote:

Sally, The reason that physics is 'trotted' out is because it is
a piece of evidence and evidence trumps theoretical concerns.
Is there one piece of evidence that has been made public that can
attribute any of the 3-5% annual decline in subscriptions over
the past 20 years to self-archiving?  I don't think there is.

Naturally we can all construct scenarios in which the market will
change and publishers have every right to do so.  (I would say
that small publishers should be doing more of it.)  But to date
the only evidence we have of the effect of self-archiving on
subscription is that there is no effect.  Until that changes you
shouldn't be surprised that people will bring up physics to
counter claims that the sky is falling down.

David C Prosser PhD
Director
SPARC Europe
E-mail:  david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sally Morris (ALPSP)
Sent: 24 July 2006 22:19
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Subscription to Open Access Transition

I do wish people would stop trotting out physics as an example
that self archiving does not lead to cancellations.  While it has
not done so yet, some physics and mathematics publishers who have
journals replicated more or less in their entirety in arXiv have
made no secret of their concerns, arising from the significant
drop in downloads on the publisher's site. Coupled with evidence
from surveys of librarians that they would, under certain
circumstances, consider cancellation and that usage is an
increasingly significant factor, this adds up to a potentially
alarming scenario.  Please can we stop pretending it isn't so?

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
Email:  sally.morris@alpsp.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "Heather Morrison" <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 12:20 AM
Subject: Subscription to Open Access Transition


greetings Ahmed,

Many thanks for your comments on Liblicense about Subscription to
Open Access transition, at
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0607/msg00185.html.

Hindawi certainly has expertise in making OA business models
succeed, and it is very good to see your paricipation in this
discussion!

The experience with physics illustrates that open access does
not equate with cancellations; even with 100% open access in
arXiv with some areas of physics, there is no evidence that
this has caused any cancellations.

This is because, with academic publishing, the producers and
consumers are largely the same, which is what, to me, gives
hope of a smooth transition. Libraries do not look at academic
journals strictly as a purchaser, as per your example; rather,
they work in cooperation with faculty to decide what to
subscribe to and what to keep rather than cancel.  Faculty know
which journals are important in their field, and will not
recommend cancellations due to open access.

Funding for open access can - and, ideally, should, come from a
variety of sources.  One source is the university's own funds;
this is one pot of money, which is divided up into different
ways (library subscription budget, department funds).

To see the potential for a smooth transition to open access, I
think it is helpful to look beyond the differences, and see the
one pot of money that can easily be transformed from purchase
to production-based payment.  This is easiest with one central
purchasing department, and to me, it makes sense that this
would be the library.

The subscription / open choice hybrid is just one approach to
this transition, which might work better for some publishers
than others - particularly traditional publishers who might be
finding a straightfoward OA transition difficult.

It makes sense to me that libraries should also coordinate
payments to more straightforward OA publishers. This will mean
invoicing efficiencies for universities, libraries, and
publishers.  This, too, can be a hybrid system, which may be
less visible for the publisher - that is, funds might come from
funding agencies, departments, or the library budget, or some
combination - the publisher need not know the details.

For the OA publisher, in addition to invoicing efficiencies,
this can be a helpful marketing tool; once the invoicing
arrangement is set up, libraries can help to provide
information to faculty about how to go about publishing OA with
the libraries' partners.

If any library would like to pursue this, one option at present
is to consider this on a publisher-by-publisher and/or
journal-by-journal basis. For example, if a publisher or
journal has a reputation for excellent quality at reasonable
prices, then the library might pre-approve payment of 100% of
the fee.  Of, if the library does not see 100% as affordable,
the library could coordinate payment and pay a percentage if
the department pays the rest; it might be wise to cap the fee
the library will pay, to encourage efficiency in the system,
and make sure that faculty members look carefully at the higher
fees.

There are other hybrid arrangements already in place that
publishers are participating in, like PLoS or BMC, which offer
a membership arrangement for libraries that automatically means
a lower fee for their faculty on submission.

thoughts?

Heather G. Morrison
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com