Re: Clarification on misquotation of figure from OSI Guide

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>]

And those who actually have time to look at these uncorrected proceedings
will find a specific warning about treating this record as "hard facts":

Here it is:

"The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.
Any public use of, or reference to the contents should make clear that
neither Members nor witnesses have had the opportunity to correct the
record. If in doubt as to the propriety of using the transcript, please
contact the Clerk to the Committee."

And secondly if readers of this list can draw a clear understanding of
what Bob Campbell was saying or rather meant to say from the record, they
have powers of perception denied to me;

Q35 Dr Iddon: Coming back to my first question, because I do not think I
got an answer, and perhaps I can phrase it more straightforwardly, what is
the cost to you of publishing an article, and what is the price you charge
for that article?

    Mr Campbell: For Blackwell? We divided the number of articles we
published last year into the revenue, largely from the subscriptions from
libraries and from other sources, and we published 115,000 articles and
then we divided the revenue, and it worked out at �1,250 per article. That
was the cost of the total system, paying the publisher's price for
journals. We are trying to get to a level of profitability where we make
about 15 per cent profit on our turnover. Out of the �1,250 there is 15
per cent profit - and we are struggling towards that - and the rest is
cost. That does include fees to societies and royalties to editors. There
is quite a lot of money going back to the university system.

Anthony

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 10:52 PM
Subject: RE: Clarification on misquotation of figure from OSI Guide

> For those who find this discussion rather abstract, the (uncorrected)
> transcript of the first evidence session of the UK Science and Technology
> Committee into scientific publishing gives us some hard facts:
>
> http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/uc39
> 9-i/uc39902.htm
>
> In answer to the question (No. 35) 'what is the cost to you of publishing
> an article, and what is the price you charge for that article?' Bob
> Campbell tells us that Blackwell receive =A31250 in revenue per article.
> That includes all print and online costs, profit to Blackwell (of about
> 15%), and royalties to societies (where the societies own the journals).
> Richard Charkin answers that the figures are 'more of less' the same for
> the Nature Publishing Group journals (with the exception of Nature
> itself).
>
> David C Prosser PhD
> Director, SPARC Europe
> E-mail:  david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk
> Tel:       +44 (0) 1865 284 451
> Mobile:  +44 (0) 7974 673 888
> http://www.sparceurope.org