Comments on: The coming revolution in STM #scholpub

By: pm286

pm286 — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:07:31 +0000

Rich,
The PeerJ prices come from their pages; The lifetime cost is nearer 250 USD than 300
The STM market is from http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=size%20of%20scholarly%20publishing%20journals%20market&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CGAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stm-assoc.org%2F2009_10_13_MWC_STM_Report.pdf&ei=o4fkT_CAMcvs-gbRh5yhCg&usg=AFQjCNF6lYltCdliVZDRUvX9dMMbO0ReNw&cad=rja
from the STM publishers which gives:
“The STM market [2009 report]
3. The annual revenues generated from English-language STM journal publishing are
estimated at about $8 billion in 2008, up by 6-7% compared to 2007, within a broader
STM publishing market worth some $16 billion. About 55% of global STM revenues
(including non-journal STM products) come from the USA, 30% from Europe, 10% from
Asia/Pacific and 5% from the rest of the world (page 16).

which adjusting for inflation, etc I think means 10-15 billion USD is reasonable. [It is very difficult to get hard figures in this area – what is the turnover of CAS, for example?

The Nature price is from http://www.nature.com/news/britain-aims-for-broad-open-access-1.10846
Nature’s editor-in-chief Philip Campbell says that the journal would have to charge more than £6,500 for gold open-access articles.
I scale this to a round 10,000 USD as “more than”

Were there other figures?

By: pm286

pm286 — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 04:31:47 +0000

I’ll try to look back and see…

By: Rich Apodaca

Rich Apodaca — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 21:00:29 +0000

This is a thought-provoking series of posts – looking forward to the next one. Could you give sources to the numbers you’re quoting?

By: pm286

pm286 — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:38:49 +0000

Thanks very much Walter. No need to worry about length. Everything you write makes sense.
I hadn’t seen Hargreaves, so thanks.

By: Walter Blackstock

Walter Blackstock — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:02:54 +0000

Peter,
Having recently retired and joined the scholarly poor, I follow your blog with interest. I may as well be back in the era of the reprint request card with which I began my career. I spend money on some limited scholarly access, but I cannot afford to buy or rent a paper whose value is uncertain until I get beyond the abstract. I could seek a visiting fellowship to move inside the paywall again, but that’s playing a game and solves nothing. I hardly exaggerate when I say that the alchemical corpus is more accessible to me than the current chemical literature. (One jewel I have come to appreciate is the Wellcome Library on Euston Road). I make no special pleading: my colleagues in start-ups are also largely outside the paywall: as you rightly emphasise, something has to give.

Solutions? Part of the problem is the locking-in of publication metrics to career advancement. I have every sympathy with younger PI’s trying to meet performance goals, write grants, teach and carry-out research. They are not going to eschew publication in Cell or Nature nor should they. But they should be disabused of the notion that publishers and researchers are ‘in it together’ to advance our understanding of the world. Publishers are obligated to maximise returns for shareholders, no more. Citation indices feed key-performance indicators at the personal level and assessment exercises at the department level. Such numbers are said to be objective and fair, but that’s arguable. Using surrogates for thought and judgement saves time but I see few other gains.

I would like to see e-print arXiv equivalent(s) in the life sciences. The arXiv is respected and works well in physics and astronomy: that it evolved may be it’s strength. More boldly (and knowing it won’t happen), a concerted rejection by universities of all journal subscriptions for a year would have impact, and may even be good for research longer-term! In considering such a move academics might become aware of the strangle-hold publishers have on the back-corpus. Cancel the bundled subscription in whole or part and the e-back holdings may also disappear. In my experience, academics have no understanding of how libraries today are between a rock and a hard-place. Public transparency in subscription costs both for universities and industry would be a start.

I don’t know what might push matters to a tipping point: recent publicity and selective boycotts have helped, but the publishers can afford to play a patient game (and have many lawyers) knowing that most researchers are not interested. Maybe there’s a role for a foundation (Soros, Gates), or an even an elaboration of Google+. Better minds than mine have wrestled with the problem.

Finally, I’m sure you’ve noted that the Hargreave’s report is published today:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/copyright-summaryofresponses-pdf

Apologies for the length, I’ll go back to my alchemy!