Re: Article on arXiv

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

It may be useful to engage in a mental exercise, namely, 
imagining what arXiv would look like if there were no longer any 
physics or mathematics journals.  I am not suggesting that these 
journals will disappear (though many observers believe they will) 
but simply that thinking of arXiv as a "stand-alone" service may 
teach us something about what repositories are for and what role 
peer review will play.

If we had only arXiv and none of the journals in arXiv's primary 
fields, what kind of technical features would the service sport? 
How would authors be qualified to deposit articles?  Would 
documents be placed in multiple repositories or just arXiv (but 
not in the nonexistent journals)?  Would there be an "overlay" of 
peer review--and what is an overlay anyway?  What would the 
staffing of arXiv look like, in terms of numbers and experience? 
Would Cornell continue to fund the operation?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but I would be 
very interested to hear the ideas of others.

Joe Esposito


On 6/25/09, Sue M. Woodson <woodson@jhmi.edu> wrote:
>
> But didn't the commercialization of peer-review came about
> because scholars didn't find it worth their time to organize and
> run the peer review-process. The Max Plancks of today don't edit
> journals they way he edited Annalen der Physik. Physicists today
> are willing to do the reviewing but they are not always willing
> to do the organizational work -- finding the reviewers, prodding
> them to get the work in, etc. And, if you think about it, that's
> not really a good use of their time. The questions remain: Who
> will do that work? and Who will pay to have that work done?
>
> Sue Woodson
> Welch Medical Library
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Stern, David
> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 5:25 PM
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: RE: Article on arXiv
>
> There is a basic tautology in the comment that the physics 
> portion of arXiv demonstrates that there is really no impact 
> from e-prints on publishing and commercial publications. The 
> problem is that we are observing two separate processes: 
> distribution and peer review.
>
> The distribution of physics material is fairly well handled by 
> arXiv, and the basic researcher population does not really 
> require commercial publishing.
>
> The peer review process is what keeps the commercial 
> publications viable.  The minute a viable peer-review overlay 
> is added to the arXiv server there will no longer be a need for 
> the commercial journals. The other aspects of commercial 
> publishing (copy editing, added-value branding, etc) might be 
> worth maintaining, but it does not seem important for the 
> researchers who have willingly adopted arXiv as their new 
> choice.
>
> You will see a drastic drop in commercial subscriptions the 
> minute a well established set of editorial boards offer 
> peer-review overlays on top of arXiv. What is required is a far 
> less expensive editorial board cost model, one in which profit 
> is removed and only the minimal costs for the infrastructure 
> are justified and covered by some alternative and reduced 
> revenue stream.
>
> E-prints will impact the viability of commercial journals, but 
> not until peer review is addressed.
>
> David Stern Associate University Librarian for Scholarly 
> Resources Brown University