Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)

From: Arthur P. Smith <apsmith_at_APS.ORG>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 23:25:57 -0500

On Sat, 15 Dec 2001, Eberhard R. Hilf wrote:

> deat Arthur,
> what would be a very rough estimate if APS would let their journals free
> online but print costly and therefore raise the membership fee of APS by
> what amount.
> [Numbers such as: DPG has 40.000 members, fee raising by 10 % would amount
> to 200.000 $ or 200 articles..]

Hi Eberhard,

I'm not sure I understand the question. If we didn't print at all
and tried to cover only our "electronic costs", and if we somehow
miraculously got those down to 50% of current costs, that would
still amount to about $13 million per year, or $325 for every current
member, per year. Given that current dues are only about $100 per year
our members would probably not take kindly to a 325% increase (and many
have discounted memberships being students, retired, etc.) and we could
well end up stuck in pretty much the same spiral we are in with libraries,
ending up with perhaps 2000 members each of who is paying $6500/year.
Our membership department would not be happy with this, to say the least...

In reality we are sneaking in something rather like this by allowing
members to subscribe to the journals in electronic form only, even
though their libraries already have subscriptions... but again that
gets into the sponsorship vs. subscription battle, tragedy of the commons
issues (why should <b>I</b> pay for other people's work...), etc.

I hope that answers the question if I didn't completely misunderstand,
thanks,

                        Arthur
Received on Wed Dec 19 2001 - 10:41:41 GMT