RE: Post Brussels : Elsevier and Australian STM debate 'sprouts'

["Hamaker, Charles" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Karl, way back in the 1980's Dick Dougherty and others discovered 
journal editors making many multiples of your $10,000 
hypothetical for editing commercial journals.

Chuck Hamaker
Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
Atkins Library
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223
phone 704 687-2825

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Karl Bridges
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 9:35 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu; Anthony Watkinson
Subject: Re: Post Brussels : Elsevier and Australian STM debate
'sprouts'

I would suspect that most editors of scholarly journals do this 
as a part time situation in conjunction with their primary work 
as professors in their various fields.  The numbers of academic 
journal editors, outside of corporations and professional 
publishing, who edit journal(s) as their full time employment is 
probably very small.  Thus, I would argue, information about what 
they are paid being available probably wouldn't have much effect 
on anything.

For example, Professor X of Big Name University works as a law 
professor and gets $10,000 a year for editing the Journal of 
Silly Legal Cases on the side.  Assume he's probably making 
$150,000 a year -- the extra $10000 is just not enough, in my 
view, to either sway him not to be an editor or to demand more 
money.  His fee covers his time and trouble for the hassle of 
being an editor, but he doesn't depend on it in any real economic 
sense that matters e.g. he needs the money to buy food or pay his 
rent.  Professor X has no real economic incentive to demand 
$20,000 a year because the publisher will simply get a new editor 
-- making Professor X's cost for his demand $10,000. If you 
assume individuals act in their own economic self interest 
Professor X will go for the situation that pays him $160,000 
yearly as opposed to any situation that results in less than 
that. (And, actually, if you look into it, I would suspect that 
many people who have marketable skills (law, medicine, 
engineering) don't serve as editors simply because they can make 
more money on the side working in their field of expertise e.g. 
being a consultant, being a doctor, whatever)

Karl Bridges
Bailey Howe Library
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT  05405
karl.bridges@uvm.edu