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Re: NFP publishing



Two points:

1) One of the areas where publishers add value is in creating new journals (after careful market research, since it requires investment - new journals can take 5-7 years to make it financially, and some never do) and developing existing ones.

2) I am rather depressed by the findings of IOPP and others showing that, for the reader, the added value (final edited version, nice presentation, live links, additional functionality) of the version of an article on the publisher's site does not seem to be worth much. Even where their institution does provide access to the published journal, a significant proportion of actual readings, not just prior to but even after 'official' publication, appear to be on repository sites such as ArXiv.

Sally

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Email: sally.morris@alpsp.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "JOHANNES VELTEROP" <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; "'Peter Banks'" <pbanks@diabetes.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 11:02 PM
Subject: RE: NFP publishing

David Prosser says "...versions of papers may exist in other repositories, but publishers add unique value do they not? Surely, if that value is valuable readers will come to publishers' sites and if the readers match the profile demanded by potential advertisers then those advertisers will advertise."

I'm afraid this may indicate a rather fundamental misunderstanding of what the added value of a publisher actually is. Sure, there is often some functionality benefit if one goes to the publisher's site instead of to a repository, but that's only a small part of the added value. The real value lies in all the processes that make an article from an informal piece of work (which can of course easily be communicated with complete OA without even involving publishers or journals) into an official, formal publication. That added value of formalising which was in essence 'grey' literature before, is a value that is condensed into the metadata (journal title, unique reference, etc) of a published article, and that metadata accompanies the article when it is deposited in a repository and is thus not exclusive to a publisher's site.

This self-archiving is allowed by many publishers, knowing - or counting on, in any event - the usually chaotic and anarchic nature of the academic community. When, or if, widespread repository depositing starts to undermine publishers' possibilities to financially support their journal operations, they are likely to review the policy of allowing it. They would be obliged to do that, of course, for the sake of all their stakeholders, such as their personnel, members (society publishers), and yes, their share-holders. (The latter, of course, do include funding agencies who rely on a well-performing share portfolio to sustain their grant-giving levels and also pensionfunds, which many in the academic community will want to draw on in old age.)

The picture is a bit more complicated and intertwined than David seems to make out. An 'author-side' paid open access publishing model may be a good way to 'save the goat and the cabbage' and sustain journals whilst making repository deposits entirely compatible with formal publishing.

Jan Velterop