Re: What Elsevier really said to the select committee

[Jan Velterop <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>]

Tony is right, it was 20% that was mentioned by Crispin Davis in the
inquiry. Abject apologies. I should have read over my message more
carefully before pressing the send-button.

However, also 20% for the proportion of the total revenues that comes from
industry for primary research articles I find implausible, unless that
number is somehow substantiated or made believable. It is important to
specify 'primary research articles', as that is the only material proposed
to be made available with open access and therefore the only material on
which the 'free-rider' argument has any potential bearing at all.

The phrase "using BMC's current prices, the figure would fall from 10% to
between 4.3% and 1.6%" I don't understand. If Don King's figures are
right, and industry pays for about 7% of research leading to published
articles, industry pays 7% of the cost in an article-processing-fee OA
model.

Another way of looking at the free-rider 'problem' is this: if a
free-rider is someone who profits from the investment made by someone
else, and we then look at the scientific research process, where funders
invest hundreds of thousands per project and researchers months or years
of their time, to subsequently have to hand over the written up results of
that investment with all the exploitation rights to the publisher, we
might get an idea of who the actual free-rider is.

Jan Velterop

On 7 Jan 2005, at 04:37, Mcsean, Tony (ELS) wrote:

> Jan makes two assertions about Elsevier which are factually incorrect.
>
> Elsevier did not tell the UK parliamentary select committee that
> industry subscriptions to STM publications amounted to 30% of the total.  
> On page 9 of our written evidence, available at
> <http://www.elsevier.com/authored_news/corporate/images/
> UK_STC_FINAL_SUBMISSI ON.pdf>, we refer to an estimate that corporate
> organisations may currently account for "around 20% of annual global STM
> journal spending" and that under an author-pays OA model they would pay
> 10% of their current costs. The 20% figure is an approximation based on
> SIMBA data <www.simbanet.com> relating to institutional subscriptions to
> STM journals. (Incidentally, using BMC's current prices, the figure
> would fall from 10% to between 4.3% and 1.6%.)
>
> To say that we "failed to substantiate figures" is incorrect.  We were
> scrupulous in providing all of the information requested by the Select
> Committee.
>
> I don't wish to labour the point.  But in view of the seriousness of the
> allegation - that Elsevier lied to a parliamentary working party - I
> thought it important to put the facts on record.
>
> Tony
>
> Tony McSe�n
> Director of Library Relations
> Elsevier
> +44 7795 960516
> +44 1865 843630