Library Support of Scholarly Publishing?

["Peter B. Boyce" <pboyce@aas.org>]

In response to Bernie Sloan's question, here are the budget figures for the 
journal publishing operation of the American Astronomical Society as 
provided by the Executive Officer, Robert Milkey. I would like to add a 
couple of additional comments which might be of interest.

1. Institutional subscriptions include electronic access in the cost of the 
paper subscription.

2. Page charges make up a significant portion of the revenue; a 
philosophical decision made by the Society some time ago in order to keep 
subscription prices low - thus encouraging wider distribution of the 
information. What is not clear from the numbers is the cost per page to 
libraries of the AAS journals is very low - about 5 cents per page.

3. A small portion of the current income of  the AAS journals is being used 
to build up a fund sufficient to migrate the journal to new formats and 
standards about every five years. In this way we can ensure access to the 
electronic material by the then-current technology into the indefinite future.

4. The AAS journals are just one segment of a tightly interlinked 
astronomical information system which serves the world's astronomical 
community. Much of this information is the product of government funding 
and is available for free.

a. All past issues of the AAS journals (up to the time when we started the 
electronic versions) are freely available as page images through the 
NASA-supported Astrophysics Data System (ADS). For articles published after 
the electronic versions became available
(starting in 1995), access to the full text requires a subscription. Access 
to the abstracts is free for anyone.

b. Searchable abstracts of all the major journals in astronomy are freely 
available at the ADS as well, and they are linked directly (deeplinked) to 
the full text of the individual articles.

c. If available, forward references to each article are listed with the 
article, both abstracts (for free) and full text (requires a subscription 
for access to recent articles).

d. There are several freely accessible electronic astronomical 
databases,  which link to the published articles.

Now for the numbers as provided by Robert Milkey:
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-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

The American Astronomical Society (6,200 members) publishes The
Astrophysical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal Supplements, and
The Astronomical Journal. These are operated as cost centers
distinct from the other programs of the Society and are only
levied a small (5%) administrative cost for the Society's
management, oversight and administration of these. All three are
published for the AAS by The University of Chicago Press,
Journals Division.

In 1998 these journals generated $6,360,219 of revenue and the
source of this was distributed as follows:

Page Charges 59.8%
Inst. Subs 26.1%
Member Subs 3.4%
Reprint Orders 5.3%
License Fees & 0.3%
& Single Copy Sales
Author Alterations 0.9%
Invest Income 4.3%

- Based on the audited financial statement - May 1999
Page Counts for 1998 were
The Astrophysical Journal 21,300
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement 2,432
The Astronomical Journal 5,774
Total 29,506

-  -  -
Robert W. Milkey
Executive Officer, American Astronomical Society
2000 Florida Ave., N.W. Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20009
Phone: (202) 328-2010 FAX: (202) 234-2560 E-mail: milkey@aas.org
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Perhaps I should add that I was the previous Executive Officer, and still 
serve as a consultant to the AAS for electronic publishing.

Peter B. Boyce

_____________________________________________________
Dr. Peter B. Boyce
Senior Consultant for Electronic Publishing
American Astronomical Society
http://www.aas.org/~pboyce	pboyce@aas.org

____________________________________________
Peter B. Boyce    -   Electronic Publishing Consultant
33 York St., Nantucket, MA 02554
email: pboyce@aas.org	Phone:  508-228-9062
____________________________________________