Re: Publishers and the doctrine of Good Works

[David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>]

A masterpiece, Joe.

But there is a situation which might comes even closer to the 
actual one. The number of potential scientists is increasing as 
the world population becomes better educated over the years. Many 
more of them will rise to the higher levels of the pyramid, where 
they will produce more high quality research articles. (Not 
original--I owe this insight to many others, including Ann O.)

They will require more high-quality journals, or increases in the 
size of the existing one In either case, this must be paid for. 
This can at first be done by increasing efficiency, which is 
possible only to a limited extent. Next comes increased prices, 
and then the situation becomes just as Joe has it.

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

dgoodman@liu.edu
dgoodman@princeton.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, July 14, 2006 5:33 pm
Subject: Publishers and the doctrine of Good Works
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu

> We have had a number of interesting posts on this list over the
> last couple weeks concerning just what it is that a publisher
> does that adds value to scholarly communications.  In my view,
> the comments supportive of publishers were by and large accurate
> and fairly framed.  One theme, however, caught my attention,
> namely, that publishers exercise a gateway function and thus
> ensure that the quality of published work is high.  While this is
> true, the comment must be placed in context.
>
> Let us imagine, then, a scheme by which publishers act in a
> coordinated manner to improve the quality of academic journals.
> They do this by instituting across-the-board price increases of
> 20%.  (The Department of Justice does not look into this because
> it is absorbed in the investigation of scholarships granted on
> the basis of need instead of merit.)  Libraries, whose budgets
> are flat, therefore must cancel subscriptions.  Approximately 20%
> of the journals must go.  Since librarians wish to collect the
> finest work, it is journals of lower quality that get cut.
> Therefore, in one stroke the publishers have improved the quality
> of the subscribed journals by 20%.
>
> I trust no one would find this to be a satisfactory outcome,
> except perhaps for those lucky publishers who somehow escape the
> cuts.  Yet it is an example of a gatekeeper function at work.
>
> The fact is that we don't want to improve the average quality of
> journals; we want to lower it.  This is because "lower" does not
> mean "poor."  A graduate of the 60th ranked college or university
> may regret not having attended #1 or #3, but is likely to feel
> pleased to have done better than #100 or not to have attended
> college at all.  The problem with the publishers' gatekeeper
> perspective is that it is entirely self-serving. Raising quality
> is not the issue; expanding quantity is, providing that expansion
> is within a certain range of quality, a range that is
> substantially lower than the current subscription base.
>
> Paradoxically, the Public Library of Science is one of the few
> organizations that operates on this principle, though
> inadvertently.  PLoS publishes the highest-quality material, all
> of which would have found a home in other publications.  If PLoS
> did not have an Open Access model, librarians would have had to
> pay for that high-quality material.  As it is, however, the PLoS
> OA strategy makes room in the budget for material of lower
> quality--but lower is not poor.  It is intriguing to speculate
> whether the Moore Foundation would have funded PLoS under the
> banner, We Strive to Lower the Quality of Scientific Publishing!
>
> My 20%-increase scenario has this unfortunate characteristic:
> it is precisely what is going on in the real world, though
> stretched over a few years.  There are many defenses of the
> publishing industry, but publishers should get off their high
> horse about being the guardians of quality.  It is possible for a
> college to be Too Selective.
>
> Joe Esposito