RE: The Dramatic NET growth of open access

["Sally Morris \(Morris Associates\)" <sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>]

In 2005, with the assistance of a large number of volunteers, I 
surveyed 1213 of the then 1443 journals in the DOAJ (see 
http://dx.doi.org10.1087/095315106775122565/).  Among other 
things, we looked at the average number of articles published per 
year, which was 42; this was almost identical to the figure of 41 
found by Kaufman-Wills in 2004 (see 
http://www.alpsp.org/ngen_public/article.asp?id=200&did=47&aid=270&st=&oaid=-1).

Compare this with King & Tenopir's 2004 average figure (see 
http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/26.html) of 150 
articles per journal/year(I'm not clear whether this average 
included or excluded OA journals).

These figures would suggest that non-OA journals are at least 3.5 times as
extensive as OA journals.

Of course, they are also (in general) of more recent launch date, 
though there are exceptions, which would mean less of an OA 
archive.  However, the number of OA articles in circulation would 
also have to include all those (1,965,897 out of 4,877,403 in 
HighWire alone - see http://highwire.stanford.edu/) which are 
made 'Delayed OA' by their publisher, some period after 
publication.

Sally Morris
Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
South House, The Street
Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Anthony Watkinson
Sent: 21 October 2008 00:23
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: The Dramatic NET growth of open access

I am not suggesting that there not are a lot more OA journals but 
I do not think it is as dramatic as Heather suggests. Surely it 
is the number of articles that count? Do we know what percentage 
of articles are OA at publication? This is a nice research topic 
for someone who has a lot of time on their hands.

Anthony Watkinson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Heather Morrison" <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:51 AM
Subject: The Dramatic NET growth of open access

> As discussed on Liblicense last week, there is to-and-fro in open
> access and subscriptions in these transitional times.
> Occasionally, a journal that is open access reverts to a
> subscriptions basis.
>
> Overall, however, the trend is very much from subscriptions to
> open access.
>
> The growth rate of 822 added titles to DOAJ in the past year,
> average growth rate of 2.25 titles per calendar day, is NET
> growth.  As Lars Bjornshauge reported last week, over the past
> few years DOAJ has weeded about 30 titles as they no longer fit
> the criteria for inclusion in DOAJ.  Any titles weeded before
> September 30, 2008, are NOT counted in the dramatic growth
> figures for DOAJ.
>
> The September 30 Dramatic Growth of Open Access series is
> available at:
>
>http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2008/09/dramatic-growth-of-open-access.html
>
> Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone,
> and does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic
> Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library.
>
> Heather Morrison, MLIS
> The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com