RE: Summary Paper from the Publishing Research Consortium

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

Simon Inger wrote:

Heather's post below seems to miss some of the key points of the 
research that I will briefly summarise below:

1. The key issue seems to centre around the importance of a 
journal to the collection. Our research argues that in the 
context of OA repositories this is an irrelevant point.

In response to my points:

This paper is based on flawed research, as it is based on 
librarian purchasing preferences, but omits key factors: research 
and educational priorities of the university, and faculty 
assessment of the importance of journals.

Comment:  Mark Ware's study, published by the Association of 
Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), found, by 
surveying librarians that:  "the three most important factors 
used to determine journals for cancellation, in declining order 
of importance, are that faculty no longer require it (i.e. 
relevance to research or teaching programme, usage, and price". 
Ware notes (appropriately) one limitation of the study, i.e. that 
respondents were self-selected.

The ALPSP Survey of Librarians on Factors in Journal Cancellation 
can be found at: http://www.alpsp.org/ngen_public/article.asp? 
id=200&did=47&aid=157&st=&oaid=-1

The 6 elements Inger & Beckett examined as factors in why 
librarians would cancel journals (if open access versions were 
available):

Version of Article
Percentage of a Journal's Articles that are Available
Reliability of Access
How up-to-date is the content
Quality of the content
Cost

Two of the three key factors found in Ware's study, relevance to 
research or teaching programme, and usage, were not examined in 
Inger and Beckett's study.

Ignoring key factors seriously limits the validity and relevance 
of any research study.

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, 
and does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC Electronic 
Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, M.L.I.S.
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com