Re: journal and publication costs, corrected figures

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

David:  I'm not sure I fully understand the argument below.  I do
understand that in a particular year, ISI reported that Yale authors
published 4648 articles (as indexed in ISI's WoS presumably) and that in
that same year Yale reported that it spent $10M on serials.  But how does
that equate with each Yale article being worth over $2K to repurchase?  
That is, for that $10M, the library is buying journals, newspapers,
annuals, databases, e-aggregations and services, tons of microform
subscriptions, art images, and much much more -- *and* indeed we are
buying tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of articles more than
those that our faculty publish.  So, I need some help in following the
thread below. 

Many thanks, Ann Okerson/Yale Library-Collections Development


On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, David Goodman wrote:

> I gave some figures for this earlier, but these are considerably more
> reliable numbers, -- but see below for notes about limitations of the
> analysis.
> 
> Cost of serials to libraries:
> 
> Columbia: $7.14 million serials expenditure, 5838 articles, $1223 each
> Cornell: $6.20 million, 4804 articles, $1290 each
> Dartmouth, $3.89 million, 1034 articles, $3720 each
> Princeton, $5.45 million, 2692 articles, $2025 each
> Stanford, $11.26 million, 5838 articles, $ 1930 each
> Yale, $10 million, 4648 articles, $2169 each
> 
> Potential savings if articles cost $500:
> Columbia: $3.71 million
> Cornell, $3.36 million
> Dartmouth, $2.42 million
> Princeton, $3.31 million
> Stanford, $7.33 million
> Yale, $6.44 million
> 
> If articles cost $1500, Columbia & Cornell would pay more, the others
> less.
> 
> I did not adust for the cost of submission fes now being paid by the
> researchers. The cost given is just the cost to the library.
> 
> Number of articles: number of articles published from the university
> listed in 2001, according to ISI. Includes Science, social science, and
> humanities sections.  Does not include what isn't in themError here may be
> large in number of humanities articles etc, because of the spotty coverage
> of ISI, but this should be balanced by the low cost of journals in those
> fields.
> 
> Includes main university 
> #NAME?
> For Princeton, does include Plasma Physics Lab, for others, will people
> who know the local setup please verify. My guess at the likely error here
> from my not checking properly is plus or minus 25%, except for Princeton,
> which should be correct.
>  
> o The budgets are the 2000-2001 ARL numbers. (www.arl.org)
> o I did not check whether they include the med schools in all cases.
> o Whether they include electronic resources is unclear. 
> o Whether they include electronic resources other than journals is 
>   unclear. 
> o The ARL data starts with whatever the library reported for serials, 
>   using the 1995 standard, adjusted by me , based on what the library 
>   reported for"computer files" and for "other materials"
> o There was no category for electronic journals.
> 
> I make no claim to have done this adjustment right.  (The new standard
> will clarify this in the future.) My guess at the likely error here from
> my misinterpretation is plus or minus 25%. My guess at the possible error
> is of course larger.
> 
> Note:
> Division by field:
> Columbia:  5126 sci, 540 soc sci, 172 human.
> Cornell,   4253 sci, 417 soc sci, 134 human
> Dartmouth,  688 sci, 279 soc sci,  67 human
> Princeton, 2169 sci, 251 soc sci, 272 human
> Stanford,  5126 sci, 540 soc sci, 172 human
> Yale,      3857 sci, 522 soc sci, 269 human
> 
> These numbers depend a lot on the vagaries of ISI-- and of course is only
> journal articles.  There is some very small overlap in psychology between
> sci and soc sci, (not considered) otherwise almost none.  I did not
> attempt to obtain figures on the percent of serials cost in each subject.
> 
> If you use, please understand that any impression of precion is purely
> spurious.
> 
> Dr. David Goodman
> Princeton University Library
> and
> Palmer School of Library & Information Science, Long Island University
> dgoodman@princeton.edu
>