RE: potential positive spiral in transition to open access

["Sally Morris \(Morris Associates\)" <sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk>]

As I pointed out in my previous message, OA journals are not 
necessarily declared 'dead' in the way that subscription journals 
have to be - they just sit there...

Sally Morris
Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
South House, The Street
Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison
Sent: 06 July 2007 00:43
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: re: potential positive spiral in transition to open access

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