RE: Clarification on misquotation of figure from OSI Guide

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

There are some other factors that Sally didn't get to mention. For direct
costs, even among journals of the same publisher, the quality of
production and copy editing may vary; some smaller journals simply
distribute camera-ready copy supplied by the editor; some devote more or
less care to the less likely manuscripts; some do the reviewing at least
in part in common for several journals of a family (Nature comes to mind).

For indirect costs, once we get beyond the basic point that some of the
figures don't even include them, some maintain more or less elaborate
office facilities in more or less prestigious locations, some maintain
extensive sales staff and have extensive advertising costs, some make
larger presences at more conventions, some are international organizations
with higher communication and transportation costs, some are part of much
larger organizations that have an overhead layer of its own.

On what may be seen as a more positive note, some costs include fully
funded provision for archiving, like the APS, but many don't.  Some costs
include systems development, while other use service providers. Some
include research and development benefitting the whole profession; some
don't.

And, as Sally understandably may not want to say, some publishers do the
basic publishing better and more efficiently, and some run their auxiliary
operations in a more cost-effective way. (Yes, the analogous comment
certainly also holds for universities and their libraries. )

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu


-----Original Message-----
From:	Sally Morris (ALPSP) [mailto:chief-exec@alpsp.org]
Sent:	Sat 3/6/2004 7:38 AM
To:	alpsp-discuss@mailbase.org.uk; 'Liblicense'; 'SOAF'
Subject: Re: Clarification on misquotation of figure from OSI Guide

We have to be careful not to confuse revenue per article (which is what 
these figures from Blackwell and Nature represent) and cost per article. 

The cost will, of course, vary widely - some publishers' processes may be
more efficient than others', though I doubt the difference is vast;  some
do more work on articles than others;  some add more features to their
journals over and above primary research articles;  some process many more
articles per published article than others (Nature is an extreme example).  
There are various attempts to analyse these costs, some already published
and others ongoing.  Some of these studies include overheads, others
don't, which also leads to confusion;  but overheads cannot be ignored
when looking at the costs which have to be recovered through one model or
another.

The difference between the costs and the revenue is the profit (politely
called surplus in the case of not-for-profit - more accurately described
as non-profit-distributing - publishers).  Some of this is reinvested into
the business - again, the amount reinvested varies, but the infrastructure
for e-journals takes up a significant percentage, as last Monday's
transcript reveals;  some of it (in the case of commercial publishers) is
paid in tax;  and some is redistributed to shareholders (for commercial
publishers) or used in support of the charitable purpose of the
organisation (in the case of NFPs - hence the tax exemption).

Let's be sure we are comparing apples with apples!

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
E-mail:  chief-exec@alpsp.org