RE: Monopolies in publishing

["Heather Morrison" <hmorrison@ola.bc.ca>]

Thanks, Chuck - reading earlier comments on this topic, I've been
wondering why more of the clerical work involved in publishing isn't
automated.

One example of a set of solutions for this is the Public Knowledge Project
(an open source project designed to facilitate open access to research) of
the University of British Columbia, details at http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/,
which "seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic
research through innovative online environments".

cheers,
Heather Grace Morrison

___

liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu writes:
>In response  to Jose Esposito:
>
>There isn't much evidence of economies of scale in Elsevier and other
>large journals publishers operations. Per page/per journal,per 1000
>character or per 10,000 characters if you look at price to libraries,
>economy of scale, if it exists, doesn't show in the pricing.
>
>The market has been so inelastic I believe, that large publishers have had
>little incentive to look for means to internalize real savings in
>production costs. And anecdotally, editor's processess have been fairly
>well stuck in the 50's for many publishers. Even IF the publishing house
>has "electronic" forwarding of mss to editors and reviewers, my guestimate
>from talking with various publishers, is that less than 50% of editors
>actually use the newer and potentially more cost effective means for
>transmitting mss for review, processing, etc. True In house, i".e.
>"typesetting", layout, proofing, etc. there may be scale savings, but even
>that's hard to tell, and is where you would expect the most cost
>savings/economy of scale. But now some publisher's tell us that the "in
>house" what they have control over costs are not the significant piece of
>the puzzle.
>
>Just my opinion, backed with a fair amount of research done by many
>others.-Cost(i.e. subscription price) per k/character studies have been a
>standard for 40 years or more, and they haven't shown much if any economy
>of scale with commercial publishers.
>
>Chuck Hamaker