RE: Open Access and Efficiencies in Publication

["John Cox" <John.E.Cox@btinternet.com>]

Heather Morrison really must get her facts right.  If she read 
Reed Elsevier's Annual Report, she would note that its 2005 
revenues of US$9.2 million were derived from a variety of 
businesses, including Harcourt (textbooks), LexisNexis (legal and 
business information), Reed Business Information (magazines) and, 
of course, Elsevier (scholarly/research books and journals). 
The Elsevier unit probably generates around US 2 billion.

Open Access advocates really must marshal their facts if they are 
to convince people like me that have not yet seen the dramatic 
take-up of OA by authors that was predicted three or four years 
ago.  A revolution in slow motion...?

John Cox

Managing Director
John Cox Associates Ltd
Rookwood, Bradden
TOWCESTER, Northants NN12 8ED
United Kingdom
E-mail: John.E.Cox@btinternet.com
Web: www.johncoxassociates.com


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison
Sent: 15 March 2007 00:35
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Open Access and Efficiencies in Publication

When assessing the economic potential for transition to open 
access, it is essential to factor in the efficiencies made 
possible through automation and online dissemination through the 
world wide web.

To illustrate just how possible open access is, using much less 
than the revenue stream currently going into subscriptions, 
consider this:

Reed Elsevier's 2005 revenue (about $9.2 billion US) was 
sufficient to pay for over 6 million BioMedCentral articles.

Just 10% of Elsevier's 2005 revenue would pay for 460,000 
articles in Public Library of Science.  Divided by 2,000 titles, 
a very rough approximation of Elsevier's output, the result is a 
far above average 230 articles per journal (picture a quarterly 
journal with 58 articles per issue).

For details and calculations of this and other illustrations of 
just how possible open access is, please see my blogpost, 
Elsevier Revenue to Open Access, at: 
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2007/02/elsevier-revenue-to-open- 
access.html

[SNIP]