Does Dramatic Growth of DOAJ Signal Success or Market Dysfunction?

[Heather Morrison <hgmorris@sfu.ca>]

Thanks to Phil Davis for welcome discussion on the dramatic 
growth of open access. In brief, yes, the dramatic growth of DOAJ 
journals does mean success, and is no doubt inspired by a 
dysfunctional scholarly publishing market.

As a bit more detail:  if there is anything more amazing that the 
dramatic growth of open access, it is that this growth has taken 
place with so little economic support. Like Phil, I think that 
the best measure of gold OA growth would the number of articles 
published. As the DOAJ search by article service grows, this may 
become feasible as a metric in the near future. One point where I 
differ from Phil is that I think the number of titles is 
important per se, regardless of the number of articles published, 
as this is a measure of infrastructure for OA - not only 
accomplished growth, but potential future growth. Behind every 
one of these journals, for example, is a publishing service - 
often a new publishing service provided by a library, and many of 
these could easily grow with a little support. This is one of the 
reasons I highly recommend that libraries consider joining the 
Compact on Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE). From my 
perspective, the economic target for open access publishing 
should be high quality, fully open access publishing that is 
economically sustainable and/or cost effective.

For my detailed response to Phil's critique of my Dramatic Growth 
of Open Access Dec. 11 issue, please see The Imaginary Journal of 
Poetic Economics, at:
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2010/12/dramatic-growth-of-open-access-dec-11.html

best,

Heather Morrison, MLIS
Doctor Candidate, SFU School of Communication
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com