---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:29:16 +0000
From: Leslie Carr <lac_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: Mark Ware <subs_at_MARKWARECONSULTING.COM>
Cc: "Sally Morris (ALPSP)" <sally.morris_at_alpsp.org>, LIS-ELIB_at_JISCMAIL.AC.UK,
Brown M.L. <M.L.Brown_at_soton.ac.uk>,
Bill Hubbard <Bill.Hubbard_at_nottingham.ac.uk>,
Alma Swan <a.swan_at_talk21.com>, Derek Law <d.law_at_strath.ac.uk>,
Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: ALPSP library survey
Your "ALPSP Library Survey on Self-archiving and Journal
Cancellation" looks very interesting, and I look forward to the
information that it will bring out. (However, if librarians are only
a part of the cancellation process, I hope that the questionnaire
will be addressed to the academics and others who also share
responsibility for these decisions.)
I have an important question about the structure of the
questionnaire. Pages 2, 3, 4, 6 are qualified by statements "If you
think X is a cancellation factor..." whereas the delayed access
embargo question (page 5) has no such qualification (how short does
an embargo have to be before you feel that a separate subscription is
unnecessary). Embargoes are a contentious part of the Open Access
landscape at the moment, so it is unfortunate that the questionnaire
in its current form is simply begging the question it is apparently
attempting to answer.
Also, the key Open Access question (Q19 If you do NOT consider the
immediate free availability of content on open access archives a good
reason in itself to cancel a journal, why not?) may be accidentally
skipped over, due to the respondents' experience from pages 2 & 3 of
skipping to the next page to find the next relevant question.
Certainly, I missed out those crucial questions on my first run
through the questionnaire, and I was looking for them! Perhaps you
could simply add the further instruction "if not, proceed to question
19 *at the bottom of this page*" at the top of the page.
---
Les Carr
On 9 Jan 2006, at 10:03, Mark Ware wrote:
> Dear Librarian
> ALPSP (the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers,
> www.alpsp.org) would like your kind assistance with a survey
> addressing the
> possible impact of pre-print archives on journals.
>
> As you may be aware, some publishers are becoming concerned that if
> self-archiving of postprints, or even preprints, of journal
> articles becomes
> sufficiently widespread, this may lead to a decline in usage at
> journals'
> own websites, and that this in turn may lead to cancellations. In
> order to
> understand whether or not our fears are well-founded, we would like to
> understand more about the process by which you make the decision to
> cancel
> journals, what the crucial factors are, and how you would rank them in
> importance, both now and in the future.
>
> We would be extremely grateful if you could spare a little time to
> complete
> this survey to help us reach a better understanding of the
> situation. We
> shall make the aggregated results of the survey publicly available
> as a
> contribution to this debate. (Individual responses will of course
> remain
> anonymous.) To complete the survey, please click on this link:
> http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=960811615855
>
> Thank you in advance for your help with this.
>
> Regards
> -Mark Ware (on behalf of ALPSP)
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Mark Ware Consulting Ltd
> T: +44 (0)117 959 3726
> E: mark_at_markwareconsulting.com
> W: www.markwareconsulting.com
Received on Mon Jan 09 2006 - 13:08:34 GMT