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Re: Geography journals

Elsevier can charge what they do because they have worked hard to acquire the products people want and because they publish them well. This is not to defend Elsevier's or any other company's trading practices for one minute. The pricing is a function of what the markeptplace is telling them what will work. You can stay in a Manhattan hotel room for $300 a night, or stay in Leonia, NJ, 20 minutes away for $135. No one really questions why Manhattan charges so much or Leonia so little.

The moral outrage, however self-satisfying, is simply beside the point. What's needed is not indignation but entrepreneurship. The academic community could decide to increase funding to university presses, mandating that the presses become more involved with journals publishing. This would provide competition to commercial vendors, introduce mission-based pricing strategies, and also generate a modest surplus that would be reinvested in scholarly communications. The question is not why Elsevier charges what they do but why more provosts do not see this as a huge investment opportunity.

Joe Esposito


On 11/15/06, Ted Bergstrom <tedb@econ.ucsb.edu> wrote:
Geography Professor, Nick Blomley, wrote an editorial called "Is
this Journal worth US$1118"  in a recent issue of Geoforum, an
Elsevier journal.  Blomley presented data comparing prices and
citations for a number of geography journals.  Blomley's article
inspired an Elsevier spokesperson, Chris Pringle, to write a
rejoinder titled "Price and Value:  A Publisher's Perspective"

Links to both of these, along with a brief response to Mr.
Pringle's rejoider can be found at:

  http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/%7Etedb/Journals/weasel.html