Re: Clarification on misquotation of figure from OSI Guide

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

Anthony is quite right to reiterate that this is an uncorrected transcript
and I wish that I had been more explicit about that in my original post.
(I naively assumed that people would follow the link and see the full
'health warning'!)  However, I think that he is wrong to suggest that
there is any great ambiguity in what Bob Campbell was saying.  If you
divide the number of articles you publish into the total revenue you
receive then surely you get an average revenue per paper. The
(uncorrected) evidence reported that for Blackwell this average is 1250
pounds per paper.

Sally Morris is right that there is a difference between costs and
revenue, but this gives us an upper limit on the average costs per paper
for papers published by Blackwell.  As such, it is a much better piece of
data to use when discussing the costs of publishing that the
'hypothetical' figure that was being used by some and which started this
thread.

(I have copied this to Bob Campbell so that he can correct me if I am
misrepresenting him and what Blackwell's position is.)

Best wishes

David C Prosser PhD
SPARC Europe
E-mail:	david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: 06 March 2004 12:36
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Clarification on misquotation of figure from OSI Guide

And those who actually have time to look at these uncorrected proceedings
will find a specific warning about treating this record as "hard facts":

Here it is:

"The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.
Any public use of, or reference to the contents should make clear that
neither Members nor witnesses have had the opportunity to correct the
record. If in doubt as to the propriety of using the transcript, please
contact the Clerk to the Committee."

And secondly if readers of this list can draw a clear understanding of
what Bob Campbell was saying or rather meant to say from the record, they
have powers of perception denied to me;

Q35 Dr Iddon: Coming back to my first question, because I do not think I
got an answer, and perhaps I can phrase it more straightforwardly, what is
the cost to you of publishing an article, and what is the price you charge
for that article?

Mr Campbell: For Blackwell? We divided the number of articles we published
last year into the revenue, largely from the subscriptions from libraries
and from other sources, and we published 115,000 articles and then we
divided the revenue, and it worked out at �1,250 per article. That was the
cost of the total system, paying the publisher's price for journals. We
are trying to get to a level of profitability where we make about 15 per
cent profit on our turnover. Out of the �1,250 there is 15 per cent profit
- and we are struggling towards that - and the rest is cost. That does
include fees to societies and royalties to editors. There is quite a lot
of money going back to the university system.

Anthony