Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

My challenge to Mark Funk is unchanged:  if self-archiving or any other
form of Open Access is not going to undermine the economic value of
proprietary journals, invest your life-savings in publishers who authorize
OA vehicles in parallel to proprietary versions.

Joe Esposito

On 7/7/05, Mark Funk <mefunk@mail.med.cornell.edu> wrote:

> Steven Harnad wrote:
> >but it is also a fact that all objective evidence to date is *contrary*
> >to the hypothesis that self-archiving leads to journal cancellation and
> >collapse:
> 
> In reply, Joe Esposito said:
> >JE:  This is a very unfortunate statement.
> [snip]
> >But to say to a publisher, "Give this away; you're not going to
> >feel it at all," is simply ridiculous.
> 
> Joe conflates self-archiving with a publisher giving it all away. But take
> a look at self-archiving vs. a library subscription through a user's eyes.
> There is obviously a convenience factor in going to a publisher's journal
> site; the PDFs look exactly like the printed version; and search results
> from databases lead a user directly to the site. These are heavy
> advantages for users. Discovering self-archived articles is much harder;
> they don't look like the printed version; and databases don't point to
> them. Truly only the most dedicated users, with no access to the
> publisher's site, are currently using archived papers as a substitute for
> the publisher's version.
> 
> In form and convenience, self-archived papers can perhaps more closely be
> compared to how the National Academy Press has been "giving away" their
> books in electronic form since 1994. Although the pages look exactly like
> the printed book, only a single page can be printed at a time. So the
> books, although free, have an inconvenience factor similar to
> self-archiving. The NAP did a study on how this policy affected sales:
> http://aaupnet.org/resources/mellon/nap/final_public.pdf
> 
> The study found that "although it is clear that free downloads cannibalize
> potential sales, under certain conditions (when the fit of the book's
> content to the customers' needs is generally high), the market expansion
> aspects of this feature can mitigate this loss."  Page 6
> 
> In addition, "if respondents downloaded the free page-by-page content,
> they were more likely to purchase than when they did not download any
> content." Page 6
> 
> "Implications of Free Content. It is clear that, in addition to increasing
> the penetration and circulation of NAP's content to customers with lower
> purchasing power, free content has a positive impact of increasing the
> likelihood of purchasing any content. The key lesson from this part of the
> analysis is that an organization keen on selling digital content should
> provide features that help customers interact with the medium. Free
> browsing, free sampling features, and/or page-by-page downloading help
> reduce risk and can also assist customers in becoming familiar and
> comfortable with digital books. Lower-quality free content will lead not
> only to higher sales of e-content but also to higher sales of the printed
> format." Page 7
> 
> While there are obvious differences between self-archiving and the NAP's
> free e-books, the inconvenience factors (single page printing vs. buying
> book and self-archived articles vs. library subscription)  are similar.
> Contrary to conventional wisdom, the NAP found evidence that "giving it
> away" was not ridiculous. While I doubt that self-archiving will lead to
> an increase in journal subscriptions, I see no evidence it will bring
> about significant cancellations.
> 
> --
> Mark Funk
> Head, Collection Development
> Weill Cornell Medical Library
> 1300 York Avenue
> New York, NY 10021
> mefunk@mail.med.cornell.edu