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Re: Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Critique of PRC
Is there a typo in this thread? As I read it, the assertion is
that commercial publishers have higher costs and lower profits
than NFPs. My experience is precisely the opposite, though I
can't say that I have peeked at the income statements of more
than a small fraction of the 24,000 peer-reviewed journals.
Obviously, a lot of this is accounting methodology, and NFP
financial analysis is rarely on a par with the commercials, but
even so, my limited experience shows higher productivity and
lower costs for the commercials by most management metrics.
NFPs tend to pay people less, but have lower productivity for
many reasons (not least being that they pay people less).
No doubt others have different experience, but I would really
like to see the data before making any generalizations.
Joe Esposito
On 6/13/07, Sally Morris (Morris Associates)
<sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I'm particularly interested in David's assertion that
commercial publishers' costs are at least 50 percent higher
than those of nonprofits, and their profits lower. This matches
my own hunch, but I've been looking in vain for information on
exactly this, and so would love to know his source
Sally Morris
Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
Email: sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk
-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of David Goodman
Sent: 31 May 2007 01:33
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Critique of PRC
The economic argument goes as follows:
There is an economic advantage in the simpler and more complete
access to research information from open access. It is not a
very great one--I think that some of the calculations are way
off the mark, but let's say it's 5%. That's about the cost of
paying for open access publishing.
The problem is that the savings comes only when everyone
publishes OA, and all institutions and funders pay for it. So
the early adopters take the risks. The transition to open
access has always been the difficult part. There is temporarily
some additional money needed: for the university researchers to
pay for the publishing, while still needing to maintain a
library, for the journal publishers to risk the loss of
subscriptions while converting to open access--it would appear
that neither side can move first.
There are four ways of making the change.
The most obvious is to reduce the size of the highest cost
segment: the costs of the commercial publishers are at least
50% higher than the non-profits, and their profit margin is
also much greater. A determination by the major universities
to not pay for ineffective periodicals, those causing the
collapse of the lowest half of their journals, would do it. But
as long as even 100 universities are willing to pay, a journal
can continue. This takes the realization of the faculty that
the loss of access will be only temporary, because with the
failure of the inefficient journals publication will be
redirected to the efficient ones.
Equally obvious is removing a certain amount of publication
from the journal system altogether. For the very best
researchers, their is minimal advantage in publishing outside
of such repositories as arXiv--their work will be noticed and
read every bit as well, and their established reputations will
substitute for peer review. I liker this result, but the
difficulty here is that this will differentially affect the
best journals, the ones that publish their work. The only way
of avoiding such an effect is the rapid complete conversion of
publication in those areas.
Is there an alternative that will protect the commercial
publishers? Yes, optional open access--the ability of the best
funded laboratories (and the most generous funders) to pay for
individual articles being available open access, with this
stepwise reducing the cost of the journals (The Springer plan
provides in detail how they will calculate the lowering of
subscription costs--other publishers are less specific). As
journals are paid for in advance, there's a two or three year
delay, and it will be interesting to see if there is any effect
on the 2008 Springer prices. If they thought it worth the
investment to use some of their available capital to reduce the
prices further, it could go very fast. Perhaps the alternative
in the paragraphs above may give them some reason.
The fourth is even less attractive: the forced conversion by
funders. With governmental funders, I have always disliked
this--once you rely on mandates, you have to accept whatever
the mandators may choose to do. The only reason PubMed Central
is even acceptable is because it is being operated by NCBI, one
of the very few truly efficient governmental agencies, and with
a very long record in successful innovation.
As for the political argument, Jan Velterop outlined it very
well in a single sentence: "Of course it is a 'political'
statement; it only applies if one accepts that formally
publishing the results is integral to doing research." (There's
an unstated premise that I think can be assumed on this list:
that research is worth doing.)
David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
dgoodman@princeton.edu