RE: Sub-sidy/scription for ArXiv

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

One clear inefficiency that affects many OA journals that are 
published using mainly faculty volunteer labor was pointed out 
long ago by economist Colin Day, former director of the presses 
at Michigan and Hong Kong, who wisely observed that high paid, 
untrained faculty were doing jobs that lower paid, professionally 
trained publishing staff could do better--not to mention the 
opportunity costs involved in their using time to do work 
inefficiently that could be put to more productive use in their 
doing the research for which they were specifically trained. This 
is one of the hidden costs of OA journal publishing not done by 
professional publishers that is rarely calculated in the 
comparisons with journal publishing as performed by commercial 
publishers or university presses.

Sandy Thatcher


>Thanks for the pointer.  I left university presses largely aside
>to avoid writing extra paragraphs ... but while they have been
>shown often enough to be a superior value compared to most
>commercial publishers based on subscription price and a variety
>of denominators,, I admit I was pretty much assuming that most
>university presses might not be as efficient in operation as
>possible, so I was thinking they wouldn't serve the purposes I
>was describing.
>
>My assumption has been that there is a new model in development
>which is almost revolutionarily slimmer than the variety of
>instances of the old model, with far fewer professionals or staff
>dedicated solely to publishing work.  These "new model
>publishers" might be showing that some extra layers of fat aren't
>always needed.  This is why I originally said the "world will
>need to change for lots of people, and not necessarily in good
>ways (for them)..." I first mentioned this in the context of
>overhead for a university press (as described by Patrick
>Alexander).
>
>With regard to my sci fi version of arXiv, I was arguing that new
>model publishers can become even more efficient, depending on
>whether collaboration happens and whether such collaboration
>leads to further efficiency.  My experience working for both a
>new model journal and a commercial online magazine led me to see
>just how much more cleanly a new publisher can run if it starts
>(which may be key) *without* most of the baggage.  This is why I
>said this kind of change might not be good for some -- I was
>thinking that existing presses would need to question a lot of
>their assumptions (and salaries) or eventually they could be
>shown to be inefficient and unadaptable as more and more
>yardstick new model journals/ publishers prove their concept.
>Of course, there seem to be some incredibly efficient university
>presses already around that have already slim operations and
>simply take advantage of new opportunities when they come up. My
>generalizations for the sake of brevity can only go so far.  No
>doubt there will continue to be many models for some time, with
>some of my so-called new model publishers failing and some
>commercial presses with very high prices and costs continuing
>(for too long, as Stevan pointed out), with everything in
>between.
>
>More to your comment though:  I would be very interested to see a
>good comparison of the operations (and p&ls) of university
>presses (or all kinds of presses), identifying a 'best in class'
>model or models.  Maybe the $500 per peer review from the APS is
>the best anyone can do.  Maybe it isn't.  I think there was a
>separate thread claiming a much higher peer review provision cost
>as determined by some other publisher; how could the numbers be
>so different? ... (probably mostly the formula, but also maybe
>some of the operations) ...  Are all of their other costs the
>best achievable? Should they be used as a yardstick?  I'm worried
>that new model publishers have not yet started carrying enough
>weight to prove they can carry enough weight -- I'd be curious to
>also see a study discussing such presses and what they have
>accomplished so far in the context of how existing university
>presses operate and how they have sustained operations over a
>longer term (my thinking is that some fat is needed to keep out
>the cold -- but what is the 'ideal' weight? How do we define
>obese?).  Maybe these studies exist; after all, we're talking
>about a multi-billion dollar industry -- this hasn't been
>something I've searched, but will now when I have some time, so
>thanks again for the lead.
>
>-Nat