Re: Major society publisher announces support for public access to scientific literature

[Peter Banks <pbanks@bankspub.com>]

Heather, despite your trying to pull a Tim Russert "Gotcha with a 
contradiction," there is no contradiction between my two e-mails.

You might remember that in my recent email I said that the 
journals that had least to fear from having their content posted 
ha a) monthly frequency, b) alternative revenue like advertising 
and commercial reprints, c) a relatively low proportion of 
government funded research, d) a high percentage of individual as 
opposed to institutional subscriptions, and e) high citations.

Diabetes Care fits all these criteria. Again, you cannot assume 
because Molecular Biology of the Cell or Diabetes Care adopts a 
certain policy on access that the same policy will fit other 
journals, anymore than you can reasonably suggest that either of 
those journals can be produced for $500 in anything approximating 
their current form.

One-size-fits-all, cookie cutter business formulas do not work. 
It's like saying Joe's Coffee Shop can be the model of 
Starbuck's.

Peter Banks

On 2/12/07 6:44 PM, "Heather Morrison" <heatherm@eln.bc.ca> wrote:

> Peter Banks wrote:
>
>> Although I think many journals can probably make content 
>> available earlier than they do without much risk to their 
>> business models, you can't take the experience of the ASCB 
>> journal and make that the case for FRPAA.
>
> Peter Banks also wrote, to the American Scientist Open Access 
> Forum, on January 30th:
>
>> I don't disagree with anything you say. At the American 
>> Diabetes Diabetes, we made Diabetes Care available freely 
>> available three months after publication, and the most 
>> clinically significant papers available immediately (as well 
>> as allowing authors to make postprints immediately available 
>> upon acceptance). That system preserved our subscription and 
>> advertising revenue, allowing us to invest in the kinds of 
>> education that patients and professionals most desired.
>>
>> I think this was a reasonable system for supporting both wide 
>> access to the primary literature and the creation of sought 
>> after interpretive literature. Going for universal free access 
>> to published papers would have made the system collapse. Yes, 
>> I cared about profits--because any net income supported 
>> research, education, and information tailored for doctors and 
>> patients.
>
> Original message can be found here: 
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/6046.html
>
> [snip]
>
> Conclusion:  Diabetes Care moved to a combination of immediate 
> and 3- months-delayed open access for the journal per se, plus 
> allowing for self-archiving of postprints immediately on 
> acceptance for publication (i.e., before publication). 
> Subscription and advertising revenue were preserved.  Not only 
> did Diabetes Care continue to receive enough revenue to cover 
> the costs of publication - it continued to receive enough 
> profit to fund other association activities, too.
>
> Heather G. Morrison
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com