RE: Is it time to stop printing journals?

["Roger Schonfeld" <Roger.Schonfeld@ithaka.org>]

Dear Mark,

Thank you for starting such a very timely discussion on 
Liblicense-l. Ithaka and its affiliates JSTOR and Portico have 
been thinking about these questions for some time now, and we 
have been working together on a variety of research studies to 
try to understand this environment.

Most recently, in the summer and fall of 2006, we commissioned 
several nationwide surveys to learn about librarian and faculty 
attitudes and perspectives. Our academic librarian survey 
targeted those senior managers responsible for collection 
development (generally an associate university librarian at a 
university library, but at a smaller school this could have been 
a library director or an acquisitions librarian depending on how 
functions are assigned), and received more than 350 responses. 
Our faculty survey targeted individuals from across the arts and 
sciences disciplines, as well as several of the professions, from 
4-year colleges, and received more than 4,100 responses. Both 
were limited to the United States.

We retained a professional research firm called Odyssey to help 
us with these studies. One technique they use quite effectively 
is to offer strongly-worded statements and then gauge the level 
of agreement with these statements on a 10-point scale. In the 
figures here I will group those who selected an 8, 9, or 10 as 
agreeing strongly with the statement that has been offered and 
those who selected a 1, 2, or 3 as disagreeing strongly. Here are 
two such statements:

* "If our library cancelled the current issues of a print version 
of a journal but continued to make them available electronically, 
that would be fine with me." On this statement, 62% of faculty 
members agree strongly, indicating their strong willingness to 
cancel current print issues and rely exclusively on e-journals. 
Virtually the same share of librarians, 64%, also agrees strongly 
with this possibility. Among both librarians and faculty, only 
12% disagree strongly with this statement, suggesting that active 
resistance to dropping print format for journal acquisitions is 
relatively isolated.

* Faculty members are far less willing to contemplate the 
withdrawal of existing backfile collections: "Assuming that 
electronic collections of journals are proven to work well and 
are readily accessible, I would be happy to see hard-copy 
collections discarded and replaced entirely by electronic 
collections." Only 20% of faculty members agree strongly with 
this statement, while 50% disagree strongly with it. Even though 
the decision to cease acquiring print-version current issues will 
necessarily result in print backfile collections no longer being 
built, it is far easier for faculty members to support a 
cessation of acquisitions than it is to imagine outright 
withdrawal. On the other hand, a plurality of librarians (43%) 
agrees strongly with this statement about the withdrawal of print 
backfiles, while only 25% disagrees strongly.

Among faculty members, we were not surprised to learn of 
substantial differences across the disciplines in their readiness 
to see an elimination of print versions, both for current issue 
acquisitions and for backfiles. While some of these differences 
are as expected, with scientists generally more enthusiastic for 
a transition than humanists, in fact we observe substantial 
swings on a discipline-by-discipline level even within, for 
example, the humanities generally.

Throughout our librarian study, we see recurring indications that 
the larger research libraries tend to have become more prepared 
internally for a transition away from print and to an exclusively 
electronic environment. For example, on questions where we tried 
to gauge just how soon a major transition might be expected, far 
more librarians at research universities could contemplate a 
tipping-point arising "in the near future" than could librarians 
at teaching universities or colleges.

As you suggested, our studies indicate the great concern among 
both faculty members and librarians in ensuring that the 
electronic versions of journals are properly preserved for the 
long term.

My conclusion from our studies is that, within some disciplines, 
there is little value remaining to faculty members in continuing 
to acquire print versions of current issues. (In some cases, 
journals with specific readership profiles, such as clinical 
subscribers or scholarly society members, might have additional 
demand for individual, but not institutional, subscriptions in 
print format.) Many librarians also appear ready to make a 
transition away from print and probably would support this for 
appropriate disciplines, so long as the preservation of 
electronic versions was assured in community-acceptable archives.

At the same time, it is critical that publishers consider not 
only reader-side demand for print, but also the author-side 
demand to appear in a print publication. Some preliminary work on 
this topic has already been completed by Diane Harley and Jud 
King at Berkeley, with more to come (see 
http://cshe.berkeley.edu/research/scholarlycommunication/index.htm).

I hope our survey findings are helpful to this discussion. I 
would be happy to work further with you or others individually on 
these very timely questions.

Roger Schonfeld
Manager of Research
Ithaka

151 East 61st Street
New York, New York 10021
(212) 500 - 2338
rcs@ithaka.org
www.ithaka.org

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Mark Leader
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 6:08 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Is it time to stop printing journals?

The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is considering
discontinuing the print version of its journal Molecular Biology
of the Cell (MBC). We welcome comments from the library community
about the value of print journals and the adequacy of LOCKSS,
Portico, and PubMed Central as archives of electronic journals.
We are also curious about whether librarians would be interested
in a print-on-demand option for obtaining archival print copies
if regular print subscriptions were discontinued.

The impetus for discontinuing the print edition is a desire to
reduce author charges, especially for color figures. The cost of
producing the print edition greatly exceeds revenue from print
subscriptions. Author charges (page charges and color charges)
are the largest source of revenue for the journal. In effect,
authors are subsidizing the print subscriptions.

We suspect that it is not feasible to raise the print
subscription rate enough to cover the cost of print. The
many-fold increase in the subscription rate that would be
required would likely launch a vicious cycle of declining
subscriptions and escalating subscription rates and would be
tantamount to discontinuing the print journal anyway, but in a
sloppy, uncontrolled manner. The online version of MBC is the
journal of record and is rich in material not found in print:
More than 60% of the articles include supplemental data or videos
online.  Since 2000, print subscriptions have been available only
to institutions that also have online subscriptions (and to ASCB
members, who receive access to the online journal as a benefit of
membership).

The online institutional subscription rate is on the low side:
$578 for approximately 5400 pages per year.  The print
subscription rate is ridiculously low:  an additional $83 for a
U.S. institution.  For 2007, the rates were increased for the
first time since 2002.  As we strive to maintain the journal's
financial viability while maintaining a fair balance of revenue
sources, we ve had to take a hard look at the value of the print
journal, which seems to be expensive to produce and perhaps
unnecessary. We have been soliciting comments from authors,
editors, and ASCB members and would also like to hear from
librarians.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

W. Mark Leader
Director of Publications
American Society for Cell Biology
mleader@ascb.org