RE: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium

["David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>]

Sally

Not really the most compelling of examples (in my opinion, of 
course).

SM - 'British Medical Journal - when all content was free on BMJ 
site, print subs (and ads) fell dramatically.  Now that only 
research articles are free, revenue has almost recovered.'

This proves that varying the length of embargo on primary 
research articles had no effect on the subscription and ad 
revenue for the BMJ.  Open access advocates are only interested 
in research articles and so the BMJ has proved (for at least one 
type of journal) you can make all of the primary literature 
freely available on publication with no negative effects.

SM - 'Molecular Biology of the Cell - in the 3 years following 
introduction of free access after 2 month embargo, average annual 
subscription growth fell from (spectacular!) 84% to 8%'

We can trade statistics ad nauseam, but let me give you a cited 
quote from the American Society of Cell Biology, publishers of 
Molecular Biology of the Cell 
(http://www.ascb.org/files/ascboadraft.pdf):

'The ASCB was the first publisher to participate in the NIH's 
PubMed Central by releasing its high-impact monthly research 
journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell, for free public access 
two months after publication. The Society is confident in its 
claim that the proposed NIH policy will not adversely affect the 
subscription income of otherwise successful journals based on its 
own experience with MBC. In fact implementation of this 
aggressive release schedule for MBC coincided with an increase in 
number of subscriptions of 16% in the year following 
implementation compared to the year prior, and an increase of 14% 
in submissions to the journal comparing the same time periods.'

(My speculation here, for what it's worth, is that any journal is 
going to see a fall in the rate of increase of subscriptions 10 
years or so after launch.  The general pattern is that following 
launch journals see subscriptions increase over time, reach a 
maximum, and then start to decline.  The effect of reducing the 
embargo to two months may well have slowed this decrease, not 
caused it as Sally implies!)

SM - 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Science - free 
access after 1 month embargo in 2000 led to 11% fall in 
subscriptions in 2001;  extending the embargo to 6 months reduced 
this to 9% in 2002.'

A 2% difference is probably not statistically significant and it 
is certainly not the catastrophic decrease that the Beckett and 
Inger study predicts - remember they predict a 50% fall in 
subscriptions with a 24 month embargo!

This conversation started because I suggested that the practice 
of publishers making papers freely available after an embargo 
period gave us a chance to test the Beckett and Inger model for 
cancellations.  All the evidence we have so far shows that 
Beckett and Inger's model does not accurately predict library 
behaviour when faced with the free availability of content 
following embargos.


David C Prosser PhD
Director
SPARC Europe
http://www.sparceurope.org

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sally Morris (Morris
Associates)
Sent: 26 April 2007 02:29
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium

Apologies for picking this up so late

There are, in fact, tangible examples where publishers have 
experienced serious consequences from offering too short an 
embargo

British Medical Journal - when all content was free on BMJ site, 
print subs (and ads) fell dramatically.  Now that only research 
articles are free, revenue has almost recovered

Molecular Biology of the Cell - in the 3 years following 
introduction of free access after 2 month embargo, average annual 
subscription growth fell from (spectacular!) 84% to 8%

Proceedings of the National Academy of Science - free access 
after 1 month embargo in 2000 led to 11% fall in subscriptions in 
2001;  extending the embargo to 6 months reduced this to 9% in 
2002

Sally Morris
Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
South House, The Street
Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk