RE: Wiley-Blackwell 2009 Subscription and Licensing Options

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

Joe, really what am I misrepresenting?  I said publications are 
making their papers open access to encourage wider readership. 
That's exactly what has happened.

You make the trivial point that it is easier for a branded 
publication to attract attention than an unbranded publication. 
Very true.  But that is not an OA issue, it's a branding issue. 
A new subscription-based journal from a new publisher will find 
it difficult to generate an audience.  A new subscription-based 
journal from a well-known (branded) publisher might find it 
easier.  Is it easier from a new OA journal to find an audience 
than a new subscription journal, all other things being equal? 
That is an interesting question, but not the issue I was 
addressing.

Best wishes

David Prosser
Director, SPARC Europe


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph J. Esposito
Sent: 10 October 2008 22:10
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Wiley-Blackwell 2009 Subscription and Licensing Options

This of course is not what is happening.  David Prosser entirely 
misrepresents the situation.

Material that is associated with a well-regarded brand that is 
subsequently made OA will indeed find a broader readership. This 
is why high-profile journals with embargoes appear to work in OA 
format, because the brand has pushed the articles into the 
consciousness of the prospective readership.

The issue for readership of OA is how to claim that attention in 
the absence of such a brand. It can be done:  PLOS is entirely OA 
and hugely successful because of the astonishing marketing of the 
program.  But start with an unbranded OA publication and you are 
at the mercy of the keywords people type into Google.  This kind 
of OA--pure OA, without the helping hand of an established 
brand--is "post and forget" publishing.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 2:41 PM
Subject: RE: Wiley-Blackwell 2009 Subscription and Licensing Options

> Sally Morris wrote:
>
> 'The publisher, ALPSP, has made both articles open access because
> of their importance.'
>
> It's interesting that we have had two practical examples in two
> days of publishers accepting that subscription-based models limit
> the readership of papers and that the solution to that problem is
> open access.  This is counter to the rhetoric that some have put
> forward that under the subscription model there is no real unmet
> demand for papers.
>
> (The other example was the papers from this year's Physics
> Nobelists.)
>
> Best wishes
>
> David C Prosser
> Director, SPARC Europe