RE: Open access: a must for Wellcome Trust researchers

["Peter Banks" <pbanks@diabetes.org>]

David,

Joe isn't claiming that current arrangements represent the best possible
technical or economic arrangements. He's instead showing that the radical
disruption of publishing by OA may have many unintended consequences, some
of them contrary to OA's overall objectives (fewer estabished publishing
outlets, erosion of peer review, and the emergence of new
subscription-based information products that libraries may wind up
resenting as much as current offerings)

I suggest that there is some evidence that one of Joe's predictions--the
deterioration of legacy publishing and the rise of other types of
publications and information delivery--may already be coming to pass.

In the field of Diabetes and Endocrinology, these are the leading
scholarly publications in terms of advertising spending (which has some
rough correlation to readership by clinicians--advertisers are quite savvy
about what physicians read and use).
	                            
                                               	2005	2004	2003
ENDOCRINE TODAY	                                   1	3	3
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY & METABOLISM	   2	1	1
DIABETES CARE	                                   3	2	2
DOC NEWS	                                   4	13	0
DIABETES EDUCATOR	                           5	4	6
ENDOCRINE NEWS                                     6	14	0
DIABETES	                                   7	6	5
PRACTICAL DIABETOLOGY                              8	9	7
CLINICAL DIABETES	                           9	5	4
ENDOCRINE REVIEW	                           10	12	10
THE ENDOCRINOLOGIST	                           11	11	12
ENDOCRINOLOGY	                                   12	10	11
DIABETES SPECTRUM	                           13	8	8
MD NET GUIDE - ENDOCRINOLOGY	                   14	16	13
ENDOCRINE PRACTICE	                           15	7	9
THYROID                                            16	17	14
TRENDS IN ENDOCRINOLOGY AND METABOLISM	           17	18	15
AM JRL OF DIABETES	                            0	15	0

Note that ALL of the major peer reviewed journals (Diabetes Care, Diabtes,
JCEM, Endocrinology) have fallen in ranking. One new journal, Am J
Diabetes, has already disappeared.

By contrast, the growth has all been in clinical newsmagazines (Endocrine
Today, DOC News, and Endocrine News). In January, Elsevier will debut a
new publication, Clinicial Endocrinology News, another newspaper that will
likely soar to the top of the rankings, if its other newspapers are any
guide.

The explanation for the changing publishing mix isn't hard to find: in the
current climate, it would be quite foolish for anyone who expects any
positive return to launch a new peer-reviewed product.

I hope OA advocates, many of whom seem to have greater skill at advocacy
than at actual publishing, are prepared to themselves become publishers,
with all the attending burdens and costs. The established publishers may
be heading where the readers and the money are--and the controversy isn't.

Peter Banks
Acting Vice President for Publications/Publisher
American Diabetes Association
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org

>>> David.Goodman@liu.edu 10/06/05 8:39 PM >>>

Neither libraries nor researchers are stupid. 

Scientists will develop publishing methods suitable to their needs.  We
have no reason to predict that they will be inferior.  If they truly want
peer review, there are multiple ways to acomplish this independent of the
nature of the dissemination.

Why should we assume that the existing institutional arrangements are the
highest attainable peak of perfection, either technical or economic?

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