RE: puzzled by self-archiving thread

["Martin Frank" <MFrank@The-APS.org>]

Margaret,

I am curious what you mean about partnering with publishers.  I 
have always viewed society journals as part of the academy 
because of our relationship with the faculty as authors, editors 
and reviewers.  It is for that reason that most society journals 
are bargains when assessed on cost per page, cost per citation, 
etc.  It has been the commercial journals that have apparently 
not been good partners with institutions.

Creating bundles has increased content for the libraries, but not 
necessarily content that is of the most favorable cost per use, 
citation, or page.  The bundles suck money out of the library 
coffers, diminishing their ability to be good partners with 
society publishers who have sought to hold costs down to 
institutions.  Instead we hear that we are short of money and can 
no longer subscribe to your journal.

As journal content is increasingly available in repositories, 
either university or government repositories, it will become 
easier to cancel subscriptions.  Will it happen?  That is the 
great unknown.  I wish I knew what the answer was.  If I did, I 
would have a better idea how to guide our publication program.

Martin Frank, Ph.D.
Executive Director, American Physiological Society
9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814-3991
Tel: 301-634-7118     fax: 301-634-7241
email: mfrank@the-aps.org
APS Website:  http://www.the-aps.org
...integrating the life sciences from molecule to organism

________________________________

From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Joseph J. Esposito
Sent: Mon 12/18/2006 7:00 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: puzzled by self-archiving thread


Margaret, I believe, as David Prosser has asserted, that the hard 
evidence that OA results in cancellations does not exist. 
Publishers worry about this as something that could have an 
impact on them in the future, a point that Stevan Harnad 
apparently acknowledges.  There is, however, the question of what 
it means to cancel subscriptions based on "use."  Does the use of 
articles in repositories, on authors' Web sites, and elsewhere 
undermine the "count" for the official usage statistics? Perhaps. 
Or, perhaps not yet.

In any event, I believe your closing comment ("I would wish this 
list might talk about ways libraries can partner with such 
publishers to find ways to change this situation") is right on 
target.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Margaret Landesman" <margaret.landesman@utah.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 2:03 PM
Subject: puzzled by self-archiving thread

> Re: posts about self-archiving causing cancellations
>
> Busy as I am each year cancelling serials and cutting the book
> budget, I have not read these complete postings, nor have I
> done studies or read most of these studies.
>
> But I am puzzled.
>
> As we cancel journals, we rely on reports which show the number
> of uses, the costs, and the costs per use.  We have no reports
> which show the journal's stance on IRs or whether it is OA
> after an embargo.  Do other libraries have such a thing?  We do
> not have this information in our ILS and it would be a very big
> job to put it there.
>
> If we know that the journal has a liberal stance, we exempt it
> from cancellation if possible - and we have done that with
> MUSE, BioOne, university press, etc journals in order to
> support those publishers.
>
> We are cancelling journals - both print and electronic - as fast
> as we can, generally on the grounds that they are:
>
> 1) high cost-peruse, or
> 2) not used
>
> We expect to go on doing this, probably forever.
>
> What has made me especially sad this year is that, very
> reluctantly, we have cancelled packages from university presses
> and smaller publishers because, after we have had them up for a
> number of years, they are showing no use.
>
> I would wish this list might talk about ways libraries can
> partner with such publishers to find ways to change this
> situation...
>
> Margaret Landesman
> University of Utah