Re: Suber's refutation of universities paying more for OA

["Sally Morris \(ALPSP\)" <sally.morris@alpsp.org>]

It would be really interesting to conduct a regular survey of the 
total number of articles freely available (a) from author-side 
payment journals, (b) from other OA journals, and (c) from 
subscription journals.  There are over 1.3 million articles 
freely available in published form shortly after publication from 
the HighWire Press publishers alone - I'm trying to obtain 
figures from other publishers and hosts, and suspect that number 
may well be doubled.

While some may argue that only articles made freely available on 
publication really 'count', I am not totally convinced - as far 
as any given reader is concerned, the point is that it is free 
when she wants to read it.

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: "William Walters" <William.Walters@millersville.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 12:02 AM
Subject: RE: Suber's refutation of universities paying more for OA

> It's important to keep in mind that while those OA journals 
> that don't charge publication fees represent a significant 
> proportion of all OA journal TITLES, they account for a much 
> lower proporation of all OA articles.
>
> I did a quick analysis for the field of cell biology.  Of the 
> 18 cell biology journals listed in the Directory of Open Access 
> Journals, eight do not charge publication fees.  However, many 
> of these journals publish only a handful of articles per year. 
> Four of the eight published fewer than 20 articles in 2005, and 
> all eight together published just 281 articles in 2005 -- less 
> than two-thirds the number that appeared in PLoS Biology that 
> same year.
>
> While the no-fee journals make up a significant proportion of 
> all Open Access titles, they account for a much smaller 
> proportion of all OA articles.  The recent launch of several 
> new PLoS journals may further reduce the proportion of Open 
> Access articles that are published in the no-fee journals.
>
> I'd question whether the no-fee journals, which operate largely 
> on a volunteer basis, can handle the volume of research output 
> that would be required in a truly Open Access environment.
>
> Bill
>
> William H. Walters, PhD
> Assistant Professor of Librarianship
> Collection Development Librarian
> Helen A. Ganser Library
> Millersville University
> Millersville, PA 17551-0302
> (717) 871-2063