RE: Springer blasts Open Choice criticism

["T Scott Plutchak" <tscott@uab.edu>]

Heather suggests that a "well-managed" high-end journal could put out 24
issues, with 720 articles, with the services of one full-time editor and
one full-time editorial assistant.  I think that's a stretch.

The Journal of the Medical Library Assocation qualifies, I think, as a
small speciality journal (four issues per year, 50-60 articles).  We have
one editorial assistant, who handles all MLA publications.  She spends a
minimum of 6 hours on each article that we publish -- that's final
formatting, line-editing and proofreading before sending to the printer.  
It does not count checking the proofs that come back from the printer, and
making corrections (we do three rounds of printers' proofs).  If we
published 720 articles per year that would require a minimum of 4,320
hours, or a little over two full-time equivalents.  I spend about the same
amount of time per article as editor -- that involves collating the
reviewers comments, writing my own critiques to go back to the authors and
then working with the authors on revisions. It does not include the two to
three hours each that I spend on articles that we reject.

Typesetting, and prepartions of .pdf and .xml are all contracted out, so
of course there's a cost there.  We save hosting costs, since our only
electronic version appears on PubMed Central.  Then there are the printing
and distribution costs, which would, of course, be eliminated if we went
electronic only.

Based on my own experience, then, I don't see how a journal could put out
720 articles per year in 24 issues with only a single editor and editorial
assistant, particularly if the journal had a fairly high rejection rate.

As it happens, the budget for the JMLA is about $160,000 per year --
that's direct costs that are contracted out, plus the portion of the
editorial assistant's and director of publication's time that is assigned
to the JMLA.  It does not take into account my time since I, like my
predecessors, am a lunatic volunteer.

Scott

T. Scott Plutchak

Editor, Journal of the Medical Library Association

Director, Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham
tscott@uab.edu