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Re: Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Critique of PRC

Is there a typo in this thread? As I read it, the assertion is that commercial publishers have higher costs and lower profits than NFPs. My experience is precisely the opposite, though I can't say that I have peeked at the income statements of more than a small fraction of the 24,000 peer-reviewed journals. Obviously, a lot of this is accounting methodology, and NFP financial analysis is rarely on a par with the commercials, but even so, my limited experience shows higher productivity and lower costs for the commercials by most management metrics. NFPs tend to pay people less, but have lower productivity for many reasons (not least being that they pay people less).

No doubt others have different experience, but I would really like to see the data before making any generalizations.

Joe Esposito


On 6/13/07, Sally Morris (Morris Associates)
<sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I'm particularly interested in David's assertion that commercial publishers' costs are at least 50 percent higher than those of nonprofits, and their profits lower. This matches my own hunch, but I've been looking in vain for information on exactly this, and so would love to know his source

Sally Morris
Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
Email: sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of David Goodman
Sent: 31 May 2007 01:33
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Critique of PRC

The economic argument goes as follows:

There is an economic advantage in the simpler and more complete access to research information from open access. It is not a very great one--I think that some of the calculations are way off the mark, but let's say it's 5%. That's about the cost of paying for open access publishing.

The problem is that the savings comes only when everyone publishes OA, and all institutions and funders pay for it. So the early adopters take the risks. The transition to open access has always been the difficult part. There is temporarily some additional money needed: for the university researchers to pay for the publishing, while still needing to maintain a library, for the journal publishers to risk the loss of subscriptions while converting to open access--it would appear that neither side can move first.

There are four ways of making the change.

The most obvious is to reduce the size of the highest cost segment: the costs of the commercial publishers are at least 50% higher than the non-profits, and their profit margin is also much greater. A determination by the major universities to not pay for ineffective periodicals, those causing the collapse of the lowest half of their journals, would do it. But as long as even 100 universities are willing to pay, a journal can continue. This takes the realization of the faculty that the loss of access will be only temporary, because with the failure of the inefficient journals publication will be redirected to the efficient ones.

Equally obvious is removing a certain amount of publication from the journal system altogether. For the very best researchers, their is minimal advantage in publishing outside of such repositories as arXiv--their work will be noticed and read every bit as well, and their established reputations will substitute for peer review. I liker this result, but the difficulty here is that this will differentially affect the best journals, the ones that publish their work. The only way of avoiding such an effect is the rapid complete conversion of publication in those areas.

Is there an alternative that will protect the commercial publishers? Yes, optional open access--the ability of the best funded laboratories (and the most generous funders) to pay for individual articles being available open access, with this stepwise reducing the cost of the journals (The Springer plan provides in detail how they will calculate the lowering of subscription costs--other publishers are less specific). As journals are paid for in advance, there's a two or three year delay, and it will be interesting to see if there is any effect on the 2008 Springer prices. If they thought it worth the investment to use some of their available capital to reduce the prices further, it could go very fast. Perhaps the alternative in the paragraphs above may give them some reason.

The fourth is even less attractive: the forced conversion by funders. With governmental funders, I have always disliked this--once you rely on mandates, you have to accept whatever the mandators may choose to do. The only reason PubMed Central is even acceptable is because it is being operated by NCBI, one of the very few truly efficient governmental agencies, and with a very long record in successful innovation.

As for the political argument, Jan Velterop outlined it very well in a single sentence: "Of course it is a 'political' statement; it only applies if one accepts that formally publishing the results is integral to doing research." (There's an unstated premise that I think can be assumed on this list: that research is worth doing.)

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
dgoodman@princeton.edu