RE: GENERAL: Elsevier Science Friction?

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

I have learned not to pay much attention to the reports of stock analysts
on Elsevier and other science publishers. There reports are preswumably of
some value to their intended audience, who decide whether to buy or sell
on the basis of theshort-term events which are typically the basis for the
analysis.

We who are science librarians, like those who are with the companies
concerned, are more interested in the long-term events, and in the
prospects for these companies over the next 3 or 5 or 10 years.  We are
also in a better position to judge them: we do not subscribe to journals
from day to day, but from year to year (and sometimes, usually to our
regret, for longer periods). The prospects for Elsevier and other
publishers rest on the decisions that authors make in deciding where to
send their papers, and --to a much lesser extent--on the decisions we make
in deciding how to provide access.

Elsevier's ScienceDirect model in its original form might perhaps have
succeeded even better if the company had been less concerned with
guaranteeing revenue and profits from year to year. It would also have
succeeded equally, regardless of their business and pricing practices, if
we as librarians had decided to emphasize paying for their journals at the
expense of all other publishers. It would have succeeded best of all if
authors in all subjects had preferred to send their best papers to
Elsevier journals, raather than to the journals of the professional
societies.

I neither know nor care how Elsevier's profits will do next year as
compared to this year--and I have no reason to. My journal selection was
not done on that basis. I do care whether Elsevier's best journals will
continue to succeed over the next decade, despite the potential changes in
science publishing. (And I care similarly for every publisher's good
journals.) I judged my journal selection at that time scale, and I teach
my students to do likewise.  It is even possible that those who work there
judge their career prospects on the same time basis.

Please excuse the duplicate reply, if you read the original posting on
another list first.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu

Please excuse the duplicate reply, if you read the original 
posting  on another list
first.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Ann Okerson
Sent: Tue 10/19/2004 7:19 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: GENERAL: Elsevier Science Friction? 
 
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 09:01:03 -0500
From: Robert Michaelson <rmichael@northwestern.edu>
Subject: GENERAL: Elsevier Science Friction?

Please excuse duplicate posting.

The Times (United Kingdom) has an article from October 8, 2004:
...

Bob Michaelson
Northwestern University Library
Evanston, Illinois 60208
USA
rmichael@northwestern.edu