re: potential positive spiral in transition to open access

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

Sally Morris wrote:

Of course Matt is right that there is a failure rate among non-OA 
journals as well.  Sally also asked whether there Ulrich's data 
to indicate any difference in cessation of publication between OA 
and non-OA journals.

Data from Ulrich's does indeed indicate a difference:  OA 
journals appear to be much less likely (one-tenth as likely) to 
have ceased publication, as compared to scholarly journals 
overall.

Data from Ulrich's, July 5, 2007:
# of online, refeered, scholarly / academic journals started 2000 -
2006:  2,253
# of above ceased:  59 = .026%

# of online, refereed, scholarly / academic journals, open access
journals started 2000 - 2006:  724
# of above ceased:  2 = .0027

The period 2000 - 2006 was selected, to help control for older, 
subscription-only journals that would have ceased before open 
access was an option the journal would have considered.

Sally's original message can be found at:
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0707/msg00021.html

Caution:  this is a very quick piece of research, which has not 
examined or controlled for all potential factors.  Caution should 
be employed in drawing conclusions.  For example, the # of open 
access journals in total in Uhlich's is understated; there are 
only 1,666 scholarly OA journals in Ulrich's, as compared to more 
than 2,700 in DOAJ.

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and
does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library
Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com