Publishers and editors, was Garfield...

From: David Goodman <dgoodman_at_PHOENIX.PRINCETON.EDU>
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 20:42:48 -0400

Belatedly checking the literature, I easily located printed
documentation for your statements. I refer
to Gillian Page et al., "Journal Publishing" CUP 1997, p.63 .

I find this discussion most enlightening, as I personally and I believe
many librarians have been assured otherwise by many publishers.
Thinking back on the wording of some of these
(oral) assurances, I can recall some ambiguities,
on the basis of which the speakers can claim they were not being
totally mendacious, but merely taking advantage of my profession's
notorious naivete.

On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, Sally
Morris wrote:

> I agree with other respondents to David's posting, that it is most unusual
> these days for journal editors to receive no more than reimbursement of
> their expenses. I was a journal publisher for over a decade, and most of
> our editors received either an honorarium or a royalty - the latter was
> often preferred as it rewarded the editor for the success of her or his
> journal. Those journals published on behalf of societies usually funded a
> considerably more substantial honorarium from the Society to the editor - on
> occasions this even included a car. I once did a calculation to compare
> what we paid out to editors and societies for journals, compared with what
> we paid to book authors and editors - the journals figure came out slightly
> higher. In the case of medical journal editors, a formula was sometimes
> used to calculate a fee equivalent to a set number of hospital 'sessions'.
>
> Actually universities also tend to require not only reimbursement of office
> costs, secretarial support and so on (which they used not to), but
> additionally in many cases a fairly hefty percentage markup for overheads.
>
> Sally
>
> Sally Morris, Secretary-General
> Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
> South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK

...

David Goodman
Princeton University Library
dgoodman_at_princeton.edu
Received on Mon Oct 07 2002 - 01:42:48 BST