Re: Does More Mean More?

[David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>]

Oddly enough, Joe is correct, but not for the subjects he is 
writing about. What his view of the factors does apply to, is 
monographs in the humanities. There is certainly in those fields 
a lack of publishing opportunities,which can only be met by 
direct or indirect subsidies.  Direct subsidies to the author or 
the press helps everyone, by making the works possible and 
perhaps affordable by individuals. The extensive discussion on 
this has been parallel to the discussions on OA, but remains 
separate. The key differene is that thereade of a monograph 
typically expects to read it through, which is not usually the 
case for a scientific journal (or even a scholarly humanities 
journal.)

Another specialized area whee he is correct is the publication of 
large retrospective collections, once on microfilm, now of course 
elctronic. These are limited by the small number of libraries 
able to pay the very high costs. (Their current success is the 
result of grant funding--it's the least controversal way to make 
grants in politically sensitive areas.)

Science periodicals don't work that way. There has not been a 
shortage of publishing opportunities for 50 years; people might 
optimistically start new journals, but this ifsuccessful is just 
rearranging the same articles--sometimes in a useful way, like 
some of the Nature monthlies.

Joe has in offline correspondance specified the Annual Review 
type publication as an example of his thesis; reviews can 
duplicate the same topics and do not depend on getting some 
scientific results to publish.

Even here, where it isn't primary scientific publication, he's 
partially wrong. The rise of the Annual Revew was accompanied by 
the decline of other review periodicals, such as the many 
Advances in ... series from Academic Press.

There are ways in which a publisher can add to the total number 
of articles produced. Most notable is the duplicate publication 
Phil Davis has so notably detected.

What I think would hapen if library budgets were doubled, is the 
doubling of prices for the journals.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
and formerly
Princeton University Library

dgoodman@liu.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2006 12:03 am
Subject: Re: Does More Mean More?
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

> Oh, dear.  This is so completely wrongheaded that one does not 
> know where to begin.  The number of publications does not rise 
> with the amount of research but with the size of the 
> acquisition budgets.  As budgets grow, the number (and price) 
> of publications increases.  Publishers also actively lobby for 
> larger budgets--because they know that the budgets eventually 
> wind up in their pockets.  It is not like large consumer 
> markets, where money can be moved from one product category to 
> another (you go to the mall for a T-shirt and come home with a 
> CD instead).  If there were a single research project in any 
> given year, and the acquisition budgets around the world were 
> huge, the number of publications about that single project 
> would soar until every dollar of those budgets was gobbled up. 
> The crazy truth is that institutional budgets create a curously 
> inflexible demand in that virtually every penny in such budgets 
> get spent on one thing or another.  I would be interested to 
> know how many librarians routinely return money to their 
> sponsoring institutions because there is nothing worthwhile to 
> spend it on.
>
> But this is to get off track.  I did not say that publishers 
> are "the guardians of quantity"; they are the guardians of 
> their shareholders' interests and nothing else.  I really don't 
> think arguments as to who wears the white hat are very 
> productive.  My point was that Open Access has unintended 
> consequences (not that that is in itself a reason to oppose 
> OA), one of which is that it will create a new need for 
> filters, which will in turn cost something for somebody.
>
> The problem is that OA does not solve the very real problems it 
> sets out to solve.  It creates other capabilities, some of 
> which may be laudable, but the torrent of publications to be 
> sifted and sorted and evaluated can only continue to rise as 
> long as the incentives to publish are so closely tied to the 
> professional advancement of researchers.  And that is why I 
> continue to insist that the solution to the crisis in scholarly 
> communications is indeed a form of OA, with the condition that 
> researchers themselves (not a foundation, not a sponsoring 
> institution) pay the freight for publication.  Tie the costs to 
> the beneficiaries and the guardians of quantity will emerge.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "FrederickFriend"
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 5:09 PM
> Subject: Re: Does More Mean More?
>
> It is ironic that publishers are now claiming to be the guardians
> of quantity. Since World War 2 the number of journals published
> by subscription publishers has increased dramatically. Anyway the
> main driver for quantity of publication is not the business model
> but the quantity of research undertaken by the academic
>
> Fred Friend
> JISC Scholarly Communication Consultant
> Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL