Re: Study Identifies Factors That Could Lead to Cancelled Subscriptions

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

On Sun, 10 Dec 2006, Sally Morris (Chief Executive) wrote:

> As I hoped, a publisher has come up with some real figures about
> the effect of going OA after a short embargo.  See below from
> PNAS (forwarded with Diane's permission).

Dear Sally:

Let's keep our eye on the ball: The question is and has always 
been: Is there any evidence that self-archiving (green) causes 
cancellations?

Answer is still: No.

The PNAS report below is about making the journal freely 
accessible (gold). That makes all of its contents, publisher's 
version, at the publisher's website, free for all (gold) (within 
a month).

I, for one, have never doubted that *that* could cause 
cancellations. But anarchic author self-archiving, of each 
author's postprints, in each author's own IR, in uncertain 
proportions and at uncertain rates, are another story.

(But if/when mandated self-archiving should ever prove to cause 
cancellations after all, publishing can and will adapt; research 
should certainly not renounce its impact in order to insure 
journals' current modus operandi against all risk from the new 
medium!)

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm

> I wonder whether there are other publishers on this list who 
> have statistics they could share?

Let's hope that if they do, their stats will be to the point 
(green), rather than off-topic (gold)!

Chrs, Stevan

> Sally Morris, Chief Executive
> Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
> Email: sally.morris@alpsp.org
> Website:  www.alpsp.org
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sullenberger, Diane" <DSullenb@nas.edu>
> To: "Sally Morris (Chief Executive)" <sally.morris@alpsp.org>
> Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 5:32 PM
> Subject: RE: Study Identifies Factors That Could Lead to Cancelled
> Subscriptions
>
> Hi Sally,
>
> In 2000, we were free after one month. We lost 11% of our paid
> subscribers in 2001, higher than the industry average, and we
> switched to 6 months in 2002. The move did not stem the loss in
> subscribers but it was reduced to 9% in 2002. We do not have hard
> data to show a causal effect of our one month policy, but the
> correlation certainly motivated a change.
>
> Best,
> Diane