Just published in MDPI's Publications!
For further background on this suite of research projects see the Sustaining the Knowledge Commons project page.
Abstract: As of May 2014, the Directory of
Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed close to ten thousand fully open
access, peer reviewed, scholarly journals. Most of these journals do not
charge article processing charges (APCs). This article reports the
results of a survey of the 2567 journals, or 26% of journals listed in
DOAJ, that do have APCs based on a sample of 1432 of these journals.
Results indicate a volatile sector that would make future APCs difficult
to predict for budgeting purposes. DOAJ and publisher title lists often
did not closely match. A number of journals were found on examination
not to have APCs. A wide range of publication costs was found for every
publisher type. The average (mean) APC of $964 contrasts with a mode of
$0. At least 61% of publishers using APCs are commercial in nature,
while many publishers are of unknown types. The vast majority of
journals charging APCs (80%) were found to offer one or more variations
on pricing, such as discounts for authors from mid to low income
countries, differential pricing based on article type, institutional or
society membership, and/or optional charges for extras such as English
language editing services or fast track of articles. The complexity and
volatility of this publishing landscape is discussed.
Citation: Morrison, H.; Salhab, J.; Calvé-Genest, A.;
Horava, T. Open Access Article Processing Charges: DOAJ Survey
May 2014. Publications 2015, 3, 1-16.
Showing posts with label economics 101. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economics 101. Show all posts
Monday, February 09, 2015
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Scholarly journal article publishing: profits at below 30% of current revenues
Thanks to Mark Ware, Michael Mabe and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) for releasing the 2012 STM report as open access.
Based on data from the Executive Summary, we can calculate that the current average revenue per scholarly journal article published globally is approximately $5,000 US. BMC is making a profit charging an average APC that is 37% of this amount, and PLoS is bringing in a 23% surplus at less than 30% of this amount.
This is based on Ware and Mabe's report of:
9.4 billion in revenue for english-language STM journal publishing
1.8 - 1.9 million articles published per year in 28,100 actively scholarly journals
= approximately $5,000 in average revenue
BioMedCentral average of $1,874 is based on data downloaded from the BMC website as part of the open access article processing fee research project.
The average article processing fee for an article in the profitable BioMedCentral journals is $1,874 US - that's profit-making at an average of 37% of the current average revenue. PLoS is now enjoying a 23% profit rate, charging $1,350 per article for PLoS ONE - that's a high profit rate at 27% of the revenue of the current average.
It should be noted that PLoS was not originally designed to be a model of publishing efficiency, but rather a combined advocacy and publishing organization meant to compete primarily at the high end of the scholarly publishing market. PLoS' costs reflect this original mission: well-paid professional staff and headquarters in one of the world's costliest real estate markets, San Francisco.
This is yet an another indication, as I have argued elsewhere, that high quality scholarly publishing can be accomplished for a small fraction of existing spend - something that every faculty member and university administrator in today's tough economic times ought to know.
Based on data from the Executive Summary, we can calculate that the current average revenue per scholarly journal article published globally is approximately $5,000 US. BMC is making a profit charging an average APC that is 37% of this amount, and PLoS is bringing in a 23% surplus at less than 30% of this amount.
This is based on Ware and Mabe's report of:
9.4 billion in revenue for english-language STM journal publishing
1.8 - 1.9 million articles published per year in 28,100 actively scholarly journals
= approximately $5,000 in average revenue
BioMedCentral average of $1,874 is based on data downloaded from the BMC website as part of the open access article processing fee research project.
The average article processing fee for an article in the profitable BioMedCentral journals is $1,874 US - that's profit-making at an average of 37% of the current average revenue. PLoS is now enjoying a 23% profit rate, charging $1,350 per article for PLoS ONE - that's a high profit rate at 27% of the revenue of the current average.
It should be noted that PLoS was not originally designed to be a model of publishing efficiency, but rather a combined advocacy and publishing organization meant to compete primarily at the high end of the scholarly publishing market. PLoS' costs reflect this original mission: well-paid professional staff and headquarters in one of the world's costliest real estate markets, San Francisco.
This is yet an another indication, as I have argued elsewhere, that high quality scholarly publishing can be accomplished for a small fraction of existing spend - something that every faculty member and university administrator in today's tough economic times ought to know.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Could the University of Iowa Libraries save over $2 million from their subscriptions budget with a flip to open access?
Thanks to Wendy Robertson at the University of Iowa Libraries for posting some very useful information about their library's expenditures on journals.
This post is an informal research collaboration designed to build on Robertson's work, explore the cost of a full flip to open access for this particular university and some of other not yet quantified possibilities that may be of interest along with a flip to open access.
By my calculations, the University of Iowa Libraries could save over $2 million dollars or 60% of the expenditures for journals listed on this web page with a full flip to open access, paid for entirely out of the library budget, assuming a mixed model composed of half of the articles published in the scholar-led publishing sector as illustrated by OJS (Edgar & Willinsky), with an average per-article cost of $188; and the other half published using an article processing fee with the PLoS ONE fee of $1,350 as an average. It is assumed that 1,960 articles were published by the University of Iowa Libraries in 2010, based on a Google Scholar Advanced Search.
More information would be most helpful to refine my calculations. In particular, it would be really helpful to have a better estimate of the number of journal articles published by the University of Iowa faculty in a given year. If anyone has data to help with this project, please share! In order to facilitate this sharing, I plan to turn on the comment feature on my blog. For calculations, download the data. Method note: the reason I used the 2008 google scholar article numbers is because this was the highest count in recent, i.e. to obtain a conservative figure.
Food for thought
I argue that we need to look for savings in the process of transition to open access, because libraries have many new areas where funding is needed, such as services to support research data, preserving electronic information, research commons type services and embedded librarianship.
One of the reasons why the scholar-led publishers that are the primary users of Open Journal Systems have such a low per-average article cost is that many are built on efficient, not-for-profit library publishing services. Perhaps the transition to full open access will open up opportunities for our librarian colleagues? For example, I hear that there are (understandably) many concerns about potential layoffs at Harvard's libraries. Getting into publishing could be a great freelance opportunity for some of these highly qualified people - after all, who better to help libraries make the transition to OA than our own professional colleagues? Or, I wonder if Harvard has considered that this might be a good time to grow their own publishing services? Then they could simply transition acquisitions budgets into funding for new opportunities to retain their own great staff.
Speaking of job opportunities, growth in the not-for-profit publishing sector could open up many a part-time or full-time opportunity for some of our faculty members, too - no doubt this would be very welcome considering the impact of the financial crisis on university professors. I wonder if even those who have secure jobs themselves might like the idea of transitioning high profits for commercial publishers into more and/or better job opportunities for their colleagues and graduating students? We could spend a lot more than that average $188 per article and still save a bundle, too!
For more of my writing on the economics of scholarly communication in transition to open access, please see this draft chapter of my open thesis.
Reference
This post is an informal research collaboration designed to build on Robertson's work, explore the cost of a full flip to open access for this particular university and some of other not yet quantified possibilities that may be of interest along with a flip to open access.
By my calculations, the University of Iowa Libraries could save over $2 million dollars or 60% of the expenditures for journals listed on this web page with a full flip to open access, paid for entirely out of the library budget, assuming a mixed model composed of half of the articles published in the scholar-led publishing sector as illustrated by OJS (Edgar & Willinsky), with an average per-article cost of $188; and the other half published using an article processing fee with the PLoS ONE fee of $1,350 as an average. It is assumed that 1,960 articles were published by the University of Iowa Libraries in 2010, based on a Google Scholar Advanced Search.
More information would be most helpful to refine my calculations. In particular, it would be really helpful to have a better estimate of the number of journal articles published by the University of Iowa faculty in a given year. If anyone has data to help with this project, please share! In order to facilitate this sharing, I plan to turn on the comment feature on my blog. For calculations, download the data. Method note: the reason I used the 2008 google scholar article numbers is because this was the highest count in recent, i.e. to obtain a conservative figure.
Food for thought
I argue that we need to look for savings in the process of transition to open access, because libraries have many new areas where funding is needed, such as services to support research data, preserving electronic information, research commons type services and embedded librarianship.
One of the reasons why the scholar-led publishers that are the primary users of Open Journal Systems have such a low per-average article cost is that many are built on efficient, not-for-profit library publishing services. Perhaps the transition to full open access will open up opportunities for our librarian colleagues? For example, I hear that there are (understandably) many concerns about potential layoffs at Harvard's libraries. Getting into publishing could be a great freelance opportunity for some of these highly qualified people - after all, who better to help libraries make the transition to OA than our own professional colleagues? Or, I wonder if Harvard has considered that this might be a good time to grow their own publishing services? Then they could simply transition acquisitions budgets into funding for new opportunities to retain their own great staff.
Speaking of job opportunities, growth in the not-for-profit publishing sector could open up many a part-time or full-time opportunity for some of our faculty members, too - no doubt this would be very welcome considering the impact of the financial crisis on university professors. I wonder if even those who have secure jobs themselves might like the idea of transitioning high profits for commercial publishers into more and/or better job opportunities for their colleagues and graduating students? We could spend a lot more than that average $188 per article and still save a bundle, too!
For more of my writing on the economics of scholarly communication in transition to open access, please see this draft chapter of my open thesis.
Reference
Edgar, B. D., & Willinsky, J. (2010) (In press). A survey of the
scholarly journals using
open journal systems. Scholarly and Research Communication, Retrieved August
27, 2011
from http://pkp.sfu.ca/node/2773
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Selling out feminism: 100 photocopies for $3,607
Would you like your students to read
Selling (out) Feminism: Sustainability of ideology –
viability tensions in a competitive marketplace by Suzy D'Enbeau & Patrice M.
Buzzanell? Communication Monographs 2011, 78:1, p. 27-52.
The cost for rights to photocopy 100 copies for library reserve is $3,607, according to the Copyright Clearance Centre. This photocopy right does not get you the article itself to copy.
In contrast, here are three options for full open access that cost more than two thirds less than this publisher wishes to charge for another photocopies for a hundred students:
- OJS journals average cost per article: $188 (Edgar & Willinsky)
- Hindawi's Education Research International: $500
- Co-Action Publishing's Vulnerable Groups & Inclusion: $965
Printing copies for library reserve is likely of limited relevance nowadays, but good luck trying to research the costs for other re-use rights. I have tried a number of Quick Price options from the Copyright Clearance Centre, and here is the typical response that I get:
Pricing for this request requires the approval of Taylor & Francis Permissions Representative. You will be notified of the price before order confirmation. The processing period may take up to fifteen business days.Communication Monographs is published on behalf of the National Communication Association by multinational conglomerate informa.plc through its traditional-sounding brand Routledge / Taylor & Francis.
Reference
Edgar, B. D., & Willinsky, J.
(2010) (In press). A survey of the scholarly journals using open journal
systems. Scholarly and Research
Communication, Retrieved August
27, 2011 from http://pkp.sfu.ca/node/2773
Sunday, October 23, 2011
High profits for commercial publishers - or jobs for academics? Let's #occupyscholcomm
Here are some snippets from some work-in-progress that may be helpful to those working to help academics understand the need to transform scholarly communication, from an economic perspective.
The elevator pitch version, for the academic / university administrator who is having a hard time letting go of those high-profit publishers' products:
Elevator pitch
Okay, Elsevier* does have some pretty snazzy journals** and useful services, and of course they need to make a profit because that's what the company is all about. So, next time we renew our Elsevier contract, how much of YOUR salary and benefits should we redirect to Elsevier profits - all, or just some?
* Replace Elsevier as appropriate with another high-profit commercial or not-for-profit that acts like a corporation.
** Replace journals as appropriate with books, bibliographies, etc., etc.
The elevator pitch version, for the academic / university administrator who is having a hard time letting go of those high-profit publishers' products:
Elevator pitch
Okay, Elsevier* does have some pretty snazzy journals** and useful services, and of course they need to make a profit because that's what the company is all about. So, next time we renew our Elsevier contract, how much of YOUR salary and benefits should we redirect to Elsevier profits - all, or just some?
* Replace Elsevier as appropriate with another high-profit commercial or not-for-profit that acts like a corporation.
** Replace journals as appropriate with books, bibliographies, etc., etc.
High profits for commercial publishers – or jobs for
academics?
For-profit scholarly
publishers are enjoying these gifts of ours [journal articles and
peer-reviewing services freely given away]. Commercial publishers are involved
in publishing about half of the world’s scholarly peer-reviewed journals. The
profits, at least for the largest commercial publishers, are enormous and out
of touch with the reality of academia. I am sure that we are all too familiar
with the financial realities of academia today. If you look at the website of
the American Association of University Professors, you will see prominently
posted a list of “Financial Crisis FAQs”, which state that the current
challenging financial situation is being used to justify a number of measures
that impact on academics, including “hiring and salary freezes, furloughs,
salary cuts, layoffs, nonrenewals, reduction and elimination of academic
programs and colleges, revision of curricula, changes in academic policy,
elimination of tenure, substantial changes in workload, and more”. In 2010, the UK announced that it would
eliminate funding for humanities and social sciences teaching altogether,
leaving the entire burden of education in these areas on the shoulders of
students. I study at Simon Fraser University in Canada, where a couple of years
ago we axed the Canadian Studies department.
The for-profit
scholarly publishing sector is not at all sharing in this misfortune. The
largest companies – Reed Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, informa.plc (also known as
Taylor & Francis), all reported profits in the range of 30-40% in their
latest financial statements. Wiley reported a 13% growth in profits over last
year at this time, for a 42% profit level. To picture just how high this profit
level is, compare this with what you are likely seeing in your personal
investments. A bank’s interest on your savings account is probably a lot closer
to .0036% than to 36%, the profit
rate that Elsevier recently posted. This is an inelastic market. It doesn’t
matter if many of the people who are doing the largest share of the work –
doing the research, writing up the results, doing the peer review – are losing
some of their jobs and bits of their salaries, or if the universities that are,
by far, the major part of the customer base for these companies are facing
extremely challenging financial times. These things don’t impact the bottom
line, at all. Another way to express this is that for these for-profit
companies, their CEOs and their shareholders – to whom we give our life’s work –
it fundamentally does not matter whether we have work to live.
References
American
Association of University Professors. 2011. Financial Crisis FAQs. Retrieved October 5, 2011 from http://www.aaup.org/aaup/financial/mainpage.htm
Elsevier
profits: Economist (2011). Of goats and headaches: One of the best media businesses is also one of the most resented. Retrieved September 25,
2011 from http://www.economist.com/node/18744177/
Informa
plc. (2011). Half year results for the
six months ended 30 June 2011. Retrieved September 25, 2011 from http://www.informa.com/Investor-relations/
John
Wiley & Sons. (2011). John Wiley
& Sons reports first quarter fiscal year 2012 results. Retrieved from http://ca.wiley.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-100853.html
Springer
Science + Business Media. (2010). Annual
report. Retrieved September 25, 2011 from http://www.springer.com/about+springer/company+information/annual+report?SGWID=0-175705-0-0-0
This is a snippet from an
early draft of Chapter 2 of my thesis, tentatively called Freedom for scholarship in the internet age, combined with speaking
notes from my talk, Information feudalism
or knowledge for all, at the Association of Internet Researchers
Conference, Seattle, October 2011. I am planning to release more detailed
version(s) in the near future.
This post is part of the Transitioning to open access series.
For related posts and comments by others, check out the twitter hashtag #occupyscholcomm
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Tetrahedron article processing fee: overpriced. very.
This post is from a Liblicense message and forms part of a February 2011 discussion revolving around Tetrahedron and Harvard's open access fund.
One point that I have not yet seen in this discussion: is Tetrahedron's article processing fee overpriced? I would argue yes, very.
If Tetrahedron is charging $3,000 per article, while the American Physical Society is charging $1,500 for their new OA journal Physical Review X, and Nature is charging $1,350 for their forthcoming OA journal Scientific Reports, and both Springer and Wiley have announced competitive lower prices on their new OA journal suites (compared to their hybrid journal prices), then perhaps Tetrahedron has priced themselves out of the emerging OA market - which in the long run does not bode well either for Tetrahedron or its publisher.
I would recommend that Harvard researchers take advantage of the opportunity to self-archive Tetrahedron articles in DASH, and NOT consider paying the Tetrahedron APF, on the grounds that the cost is excessive.
To speculate a little: is it possible that this trend toward more affordable article processing fees is an early indication of the success of COPE (Compact on Open Access Publishing Equity)? Restricting COPE funding to fully OA journals appears (to me) to be helping to inspire the creation of new affordable OA journals. In the long run, this is what will create the new, affordable OA system of which Darnton speaks.
Some of the present players in the scholarly publishing system are obviously leading in the transition, while (not too surprisingly) some may be lagging behind.
One point that I have not yet seen in this discussion: is Tetrahedron's article processing fee overpriced? I would argue yes, very.
If Tetrahedron is charging $3,000 per article, while the American Physical Society is charging $1,500 for their new OA journal Physical Review X, and Nature is charging $1,350 for their forthcoming OA journal Scientific Reports, and both Springer and Wiley have announced competitive lower prices on their new OA journal suites (compared to their hybrid journal prices), then perhaps Tetrahedron has priced themselves out of the emerging OA market - which in the long run does not bode well either for Tetrahedron or its publisher.
I would recommend that Harvard researchers take advantage of the opportunity to self-archive Tetrahedron articles in DASH, and NOT consider paying the Tetrahedron APF, on the grounds that the cost is excessive.
To speculate a little: is it possible that this trend toward more affordable article processing fees is an early indication of the success of COPE (Compact on Open Access Publishing Equity)? Restricting COPE funding to fully OA journals appears (to me) to be helping to inspire the creation of new affordable OA journals. In the long run, this is what will create the new, affordable OA system of which Darnton speaks.
Some of the present players in the scholarly publishing system are obviously leading in the transition, while (not too surprisingly) some may be lagging behind.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Libraries: is this YOUR free cash? informa (Taylor & Francis) glowing picture for investors
While libraries are reeling from severe budget cuts due to the financial crisis, how are the commercial publishers that rely on us doing? Hurting too? Not really, it seems. Here is what informa (Taylor & Francis) is telling investors today:
The strong portfolio of products within the Informa stable allows the group highly favourable valuation characteristics including:
* Excellent free cash generation
* High return on capital employed
* Excellent quality of earnings - significant subscription revenues with high renewal rates
* High margins especially on data and subscription products
* High operational gearing and cost flexibility
* Products which do and will continue to benefit from technological advances and changing consumer trends
From: informa / Investor Relations
What does this mean?
Excellent free cash generation = when we send in our subscription payments, they have tons of cash on hand. In ordinary household terms: when you get your paycheque, the money is not all going to pay the bills right away, you pay these off and have lots of spending money.
High return on capital employed = for what they spend on getting the journals, they get way more money back.
High margins especially on data and subscription revenues with high renewal rates = high profits. Does it mean that they could afford to give your library a MUCH bigger discount - say 30 to 40 % more - and still more than cover their costs? Yes, it does. I don't have enough detail to specify the amount, but this does seem reasonable to ask.
High operational gearing and cost flexibility = even though they are making way more than it costs to produce the journals, they are finding ways to cut corners and make even more profits. If they are passing on some of the savings to your library, please let me know!
Products which do and will continue to benefit from technological advances and changing consumer trends = they think no matter what happens, they will just keep on making more and more money.
This post is part of the economics 101 series.
The strong portfolio of products within the Informa stable allows the group highly favourable valuation characteristics including:
* Excellent free cash generation
* High return on capital employed
* Excellent quality of earnings - significant subscription revenues with high renewal rates
* High margins especially on data and subscription products
* High operational gearing and cost flexibility
* Products which do and will continue to benefit from technological advances and changing consumer trends
From: informa / Investor Relations
What does this mean?
Excellent free cash generation = when we send in our subscription payments, they have tons of cash on hand. In ordinary household terms: when you get your paycheque, the money is not all going to pay the bills right away, you pay these off and have lots of spending money.
High return on capital employed = for what they spend on getting the journals, they get way more money back.
High margins especially on data and subscription revenues with high renewal rates = high profits. Does it mean that they could afford to give your library a MUCH bigger discount - say 30 to 40 % more - and still more than cover their costs? Yes, it does. I don't have enough detail to specify the amount, but this does seem reasonable to ask.
High operational gearing and cost flexibility = even though they are making way more than it costs to produce the journals, they are finding ways to cut corners and make even more profits. If they are passing on some of the savings to your library, please let me know!
Products which do and will continue to benefit from technological advances and changing consumer trends = they think no matter what happens, they will just keep on making more and more money.
This post is part of the economics 101 series.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Full open access to articles - with library savings of over 70%
Update October 5, 2010: the currency reported in the STM report was USD, not UK pounds sterling. Thanks to Mark Ware, author of the STM report, for this information - and interesting example of open peer review in action! The USD currency is reflected in the STM report v1.1 on the STM website.
What this means is that my original figure (based on an assumption of US currency) of 64% savings is more accurate. I will rework the spreadsheet and re-release in the near future. Additional open peer review is welcome.
At the PLoS average article processing fee of $1,649 U.S. per article, or BMC average article processing charge of $1,560 U.S., libraries worldwide could fund full open access to the world's estimated 1.5 million scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles produced every year at less than 30% of current annual global academic library journal expenditures.
The purpose of this broad-brush, macroeconomic analysis is to sweep aside the complexities of transitioning to open access, to view just how achievable open access is from an economic standpoint.
The method for calculating these savings involves:
STM Revenue
Full open access at PLoS or BMC rates
One key point: the average cost per article matters. To keep things simple, this macroanalysis only considers one business model for open access, and only two publishers.
Data Sources
BioMedCentral standard article processing charge - from BMC website http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/apcfaq Sept. 27, 2010.
Björk, Bo-Christer; Roosr, Annikki; Lauri, Mari. (2008). Global annual volume of peer reviewed scholarly articles and the share available via different open access options. ELPUB2008. Open Scholarship: Authority, Community, and Sustainability in the Age of Web 2.0 - Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Electronic Publishing held in Toronto, Canada 25-27 June 2008 / Edited by: Leslie Chan and Susanna Mornati.
PLoS average publication fee (2010): http://www.plosone.org/static/policies.action#pubfee
Research Information Network (RIN). (2008). Activities, costs and funding flows in the scholarly communications system in the UK Retrieved from http://is.gd/3Q7cm
Universal Currency Converter. Retrieved from http://www.xe.com/ucc/ September 27, 2010
Ware, Mark. (2009) The stm report: An overview of scientific and scholarly
journals publishing 2009. International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM). Retrieved from http://www.stm-assoc.org/ February 2010
To download a spreadsheet with calculations, go to the Economics of Scholarly Communication Dataverse.
This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access and Economics 101 series, and is an update and correction of a post from 2009.
What this means is that my original figure (based on an assumption of US currency) of 64% savings is more accurate. I will rework the spreadsheet and re-release in the near future. Additional open peer review is welcome.
At the PLoS average article processing fee of $1,649 U.S. per article, or BMC average article processing charge of $1,560 U.S., libraries worldwide could fund full open access to the world's estimated 1.5 million scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles produced every year at less than 30% of current annual global academic library journal expenditures.The purpose of this broad-brush, macroeconomic analysis is to sweep aside the complexities of transitioning to open access, to view just how achievable open access is from an economic standpoint.
The method for calculating these savings involves:
STM Revenue
- Take the total STM annual journal revenue as reported by Mark Ware for STM of 8 billion pounds sterling and convert to about 12.6 billion U.S.
- Divide by .7 (approx. 70% of STM journal revenue is from academic libraries according to Ware)
- This gives $8.8 billion USD annual revenue to STM from academic libraries alone
Full open access at PLoS or BMC rates
- PLoS average rate: multiply # of articles / PLoS journal by article processing fee for that journal, add and calculate average
- BMC standard rate is from BMC webpage
- Multiply by approx. 1.5 million scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles per year as discovered by Björk et al
One key point: the average cost per article matters. To keep things simple, this macroanalysis only considers one business model for open access, and only two publishers.
Data Sources
BioMedCentral standard article processing charge - from BMC website http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/apcfaq Sept. 27, 2010.
Björk, Bo-Christer; Roosr, Annikki; Lauri, Mari. (2008). Global annual volume of peer reviewed scholarly articles and the share available via different open access options. ELPUB2008. Open Scholarship: Authority, Community, and Sustainability in the Age of Web 2.0 - Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Electronic Publishing held in Toronto, Canada 25-27 June 2008 / Edited by: Leslie Chan and Susanna Mornati.
PLoS average publication fee (2010): http://www.plosone.org/static/policies.action#pubfee
Research Information Network (RIN). (2008). Activities, costs and funding flows in the scholarly communications system in the UK Retrieved from http://is.gd/3Q7cm
Universal Currency Converter. Retrieved from http://www.xe.com/ucc/ September 27, 2010
Ware, Mark. (2009) The stm report: An overview of scientific and scholarly
journals publishing 2009. International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM). Retrieved from http://www.stm-assoc.org/ February 2010
To download a spreadsheet with calculations, go to the Economics of Scholarly Communication Dataverse.
This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access and Economics 101 series, and is an update and correction of a post from 2009.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Worlds of differences between publishers (economics 101)
Many librarians have never studied economics. Now that we are playing a key role in transforming scholarly communication, we need to know a little about the topic, at least as it applies to the stuff we work with. This is true whether we're in library management, collections, or at the front lines working with faculty on scholarly communication issues. This post is the first in a series designed to provide an easy reading introduction to librarians on this topic and for this purpose, called Economics 101.
Today's topic introduces the concept of the worlds of differences that exist between publishers. I will be using one of my favorite examples - since it is both so extreme, and from LIS. Emerald's Library Management, with a subscription price of Euro 11819 according to Ulrich's (that's 15,138 USD by today's conversion rate), costs about 190 times as much as ACRL's College and Research Libraries (similar in number of peer-reviewed articles per year), at a maximum non-member non-US rate of 80 USD. While this is an extreme example, it nonetheless illustrates an important point: the journals of the for-profit commercial sector can cost not only more than the not-for-profits, the commercials often cost a very great deal more.
This is important, because if we would like to see a healthy, affordable future for scholarly communication, we need to understand and support the often small, not-for-profit publishers, whether they are our own, as in the case of C&RL, or help our faculty members to see the importance of supporting such journals in their own disciplines.
Following are a few ways to think about this:
A simple way to keep this difference in mind in the field: when comparing journals or publishers and their pricing changes over the years, keep in mind the actual price - not just the percentage of increase or decrease. A 1% increase to C&RL is $.80; a 1% increase to Library Management is $150, almost double the full subscription cost of C&RL.
This post is the first in the series Economics 101. While the examples here are subscription-based journals, overall the purpose of understanding the economics is transitioning to open access. What's the connection? Publishers that have never gouged anyone, but have rather always kept their prices reasonable, often (like C&RL) have a well-deserved reputation for high quality. If they depend on library subscription dollars - let's help them to make the transition to open access. When I talk to people involved with many of these journals, what I hear is that many of them would love to make such a transition - they just need a little help, and if librarians step up to help them, many would welcome the help.
Today's topic introduces the concept of the worlds of differences that exist between publishers. I will be using one of my favorite examples - since it is both so extreme, and from LIS. Emerald's Library Management, with a subscription price of Euro 11819 according to Ulrich's (that's 15,138 USD by today's conversion rate), costs about 190 times as much as ACRL's College and Research Libraries (similar in number of peer-reviewed articles per year), at a maximum non-member non-US rate of 80 USD. While this is an extreme example, it nonetheless illustrates an important point: the journals of the for-profit commercial sector can cost not only more than the not-for-profits, the commercials often cost a very great deal more.
This is important, because if we would like to see a healthy, affordable future for scholarly communication, we need to understand and support the often small, not-for-profit publishers, whether they are our own, as in the case of C&RL, or help our faculty members to see the importance of supporting such journals in their own disciplines.
Following are a few ways to think about this:
- When it comes time for renewal, budgets are tight, and of course we want publishers to keep their prices down. But does it make sense to ask the same sacrifices of a publisher of a journal that costs only $80 and another very similar journal that costs more than $15,000?
- If we thought about the important work that ACRL does and how low that $80 subscription ($70 in the U.S., by the way) is, and asked ACRL to double the price for C&RL, and negotiated with Emerald for a 1% decrease in the cost for Library Management, we would save money (1% of $15,000 is $150 - $80 for doubling the cost of C&RL). We would save $70.
- Or, why not ask Emerald to be just a bit more reasonable, and halve the price of Library Management to just $7,500 U.S.? This would save us enough money to pay for subscriptions to 94 journals like C&RL.
A simple way to keep this difference in mind in the field: when comparing journals or publishers and their pricing changes over the years, keep in mind the actual price - not just the percentage of increase or decrease. A 1% increase to C&RL is $.80; a 1% increase to Library Management is $150, almost double the full subscription cost of C&RL.
This post is the first in the series Economics 101. While the examples here are subscription-based journals, overall the purpose of understanding the economics is transitioning to open access. What's the connection? Publishers that have never gouged anyone, but have rather always kept their prices reasonable, often (like C&RL) have a well-deserved reputation for high quality. If they depend on library subscription dollars - let's help them to make the transition to open access. When I talk to people involved with many of these journals, what I hear is that many of them would love to make such a transition - they just need a little help, and if librarians step up to help them, many would welcome the help.
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