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Re: Study Identifies Factors That Could Lead to Cancelled Subscriptions

I'd say that publishers, given the chance, will work out what delay is likely to be sufficient to protect their subscriptions/licences from large-scale erosion. A number of different factors will be at work: the subject field (e.g. how fast-moving is it?) and the frequency of the journal are both likely to have a significant bearing on this.

Do journals see cancellations? Well, when the British Medical Journal made all its content (not just primary research articles) freely available immediately, it lost subscriptions. When it changed policy, and restricted access to everything except primary research articles, it managed to stop and even (I think) reverse the trend. But the BMJ is not typical - its USP is its non-research content...

I'd be very interested to hear any (albeit anecdotal) evidence from publishers who have, or have not, seen a loss of subscriptions when access was opened up at x months - particularly those who might have changed the embargo period and seen a difference. I wonder whether OUP has any data?

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham
Email: sally.morris@alpsp.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Davis" <pmd8@cornell.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 7:12 AM
Subject: Re: Study Identifies Factors That Could Lead to Cancelled
Subscriptions

While I have no doubt that this study was well done and holds up methodologically, I do wonder about its experimental validity. Do librarian preferences for cancellation translate into actual cancellations?

If the PRC results were predictive of actual behavior, one would expect that subscription-based journals that provided delayed free content [1] would see massive library cancellations. Are these publishers, some of whom provide free access after as little as 2-months committing subscription hari-kari? Seems not.

--Phil Davis

[1] see hundreds of journals publishing with HighWire Press
http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl

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Philip M. Davis
PhD Student (and former Science Librarian)
Department of Communication
Cornell University
email: pmd8@cornell.edu
work phone: 607 255-0354
web: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/pmd8/