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Playing a little game (was Georgia State)



Ted Bergstrom's study reports that articles published in the most-prestigious economics journals are more often self-archived than less-prestigious (and more expensive) journals [1]. This is similar to the findings of Jonathan Wren who reported that the likelihood of an article being found freely-available at a non-publisher's website increases with the journal's impact factor [2].

Is Thomas Krichel advocating a library market where only the worst and most expensive garner institutional support? The market incentives seem backward. --Phil Davis

[1] Bergstrom TC, Lavaty R. How often to economists self-archive?
University of California, Santa Barbara,
2007:http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucsbecon/bergstrom/2007a.

[2] Wren JD. Open access and openly accessible: a study of scientific
publications shared via the Internet. BMJ 2005; 330(7500).
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7500/1128


Joseph J. Esposito wrote:
I wonder if we couldn't usefully play a little game here.

What would happen if libraries began to do precisely what Thomas
Krichel says they should--that is, begin to cancel journals whose
contents can largely be found through various open access sources?

Would we expect the publishers, both commercial and NFPs, to do
nothing? Would they say, Well, the game is up. Let's get out of
publishing and go into real estate or sell subprime mortgages, for
which we are ideally suited.

Would we expect legal and regulatory challenges?

Would publishers adapt to the new environment by developing new
services that do not require subscriptions for content?  If so, who
would pay for these services?

Would publishers get out of the editorial activity, including peer
review, altogether?  If so, what organizations would spring up and how
would they be financed?

Would traditional peer review be deemed to decline in importance in an
era of rapid-fire communications and commentary?

Would the net cost of scholarly communications borne by academic
institutions be greater or less?

Even if we don't know the answers to some or all of these questions,
should we push for the cancellations of the subscriptions anyway?

Joe Esposito