Re: NFP publishing

["Sally Morris \(ALPSP\)" <sally.morris@alpsp.org>]

Two points:

1)  One of the areas where publishers add value is in creating 
new journals (after careful market research, since it requires 
investment - new journals can take 5-7 years to make it 
financially, and some never do) and developing existing ones.

2)  I am rather depressed by the findings of IOPP and others 
showing that, for the reader, the added value (final edited 
version, nice presentation, live links, additional functionality) 
of the version of an article on the publisher's site does not 
seem to be worth much. Even where their institution does provide 
access to the published journal, a significant proportion of 
actual readings, not just prior to but even after 'official' 
publication, appear to be on repository sites such as ArXiv.

Sally

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Email:  sally.morris@alpsp.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "JOHANNES VELTEROP" <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; "'Peter Banks'" <pbanks@diabetes.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 11:02 PM
Subject: RE: NFP publishing

> David Prosser says "...versions of papers may exist in other 
> repositories, but publishers add unique value do they not? 
> Surely, if that value is valuable readers will come to 
> publishers' sites and if the readers match the profile demanded 
> by potential advertisers then those advertisers will 
> advertise."
>
> I'm afraid this may indicate a rather fundamental 
> misunderstanding of what the added value of a publisher 
> actually is. Sure, there is often some functionality benefit if 
> one goes to the publisher's site instead of to a repository, 
> but that's only a small part of the added value. The real value 
> lies in all the processes that make an article from an informal 
> piece of work (which can of course easily be communicated with 
> complete OA without even involving publishers or journals) into 
> an official, formal publication. That added value of 
> formalising which was in essence 'grey' literature before, is a 
> value that is condensed into the metadata (journal title, 
> unique reference, etc) of a published article, and that 
> metadata accompanies the article when it is deposited in a 
> repository and is thus not exclusive to a publisher's site.
>
> This self-archiving is allowed by many publishers, knowing - or 
> counting on, in any event - the usually chaotic and anarchic 
> nature of the academic community. When, or if, widespread 
> repository depositing starts to undermine publishers' 
> possibilities to financially support their journal operations, 
> they are likely to review the policy of allowing it. They would 
> be obliged to do that, of course, for the sake of all their 
> stakeholders, such as their personnel, members (society 
> publishers), and yes, their share-holders. (The latter, of 
> course, do include funding agencies who rely on a 
> well-performing share portfolio to sustain their grant-giving 
> levels and also pensionfunds, which many in the academic 
> community will want to draw on in old age.)
>
> The picture is a bit more complicated and intertwined than 
> David seems to make out. An 'author-side' paid open access 
> publishing model may be a good way to 'save the goat and the 
> cabbage' and sustain journals whilst making repository deposits 
> entirely compatible with formal publishing.
>
> Jan Velterop