There is better reason why MBC can not be used as a general example. it's an extremely good journal.
Journals of its quality will do relatively better under any system, including mandatory Green OA.
It's those societies whose journals are not of this
quality who should be most worried. They are indeed in the most danger. When journal
subscriptons begin to be canceled due to the availability of Green, librarians wil start with the
least cost-effective, which will be both the titles with extremely high subscription costs (mainly
commercial publishers), and also those titles whch may have moderate cost, but little use (found in all
sectors of publishing). That's what libraries do when they cancel because of increasing costs,
and that's what they will do when they cancel because of declining need.
(I suppose Stevan would modify this to *IF* they cancel for declining need, but the same argument holds.)
Uner the present system,, the best journals prosper.
With ncreasing OA, ONLY the best will prosper
MBC is also a considerable way towards being a Gold OA journal: it has a
"basic page charge of $65 per page for the first 9 pages of an article
and a $130 per page charge for each additional page."
It has an obvious strategy: to simply become an OA journal.
Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
and formerly
Princeton University Library
dgoodman_at_liu.edu
dgoodman_at_princeton.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: Martin Frank <MFrank_at_THE-APS.ORG>
Date: Monday, July 3, 2006 6:37 pm
Subject: Re: [AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM] Mandated Self-Archiving and the "Open Choice" Option (fwd)
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> It is interesting that Molecular Biology of the Cell has become
> the poster child for the OA movement? Below, Peter Suber uses MBC
> and its decision to make access available for free after two months
> as evidence for the benefits of OA. I would agree that the
> advocacy for OA by MBC and its sponsoring Society, ASCB, did
> increase the visibility of the journal and likely contributed to
> the increase in submission. It might have also contributed to the
> increased impact factor since visibility does increase the number
> of eyeballs viewing the content of the journal, leading to an
> increase in citations. However, I do not think one can correlate
> an increase in subscriptions to the journal's OA policy. First of
> all, one must recognize that MBC is a relatively new journal,
> having been founded in 1990. As knowledge of the journal has
> increased, additional institutions have decided to subscribe to the
> journal. However, the subscription data regularly distributed by
> ASCB to Congress and others to demonstrate that OA after 2 months
> does not negatively impact subscriptions actually misrepresents the
> data. The 11,000+ subscriptions that are represented in the graph,
> which grew significantly over a period of time, actually includes
> both member and institutional subscriptions. The slope of the line
> more closely parallels the membership growth of the Society, not
> the subscription growth. Lila Gutterman, The Chronicle of Higher
> Education, asked Gary Ward, ASCB, for a clarification of the data,
> but he did not provide it. Indeed, when I have asked ASCB for
> disaggregated data, showing member and institutional subscriptions
> separately, they have been unwilling to provide the information.
> Until that data is provided, Peter really should not be using MBC
> as the poster child for the movement. Combining membership growth,
> and therefore member subscriptions, with institutional
> subscriptions, can be used to demonstrate that 2 months or 12
> months will have no impact on subscriptions. In reality, most of
> us differentiate the two types of subscriptions to obtain a clear
> indication of the impact of our free access policies.
> Martin Frank, Ph.D.
> Executive Director, American Physiological Society
> 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814-3991
> Tel; 301-634-7118 fax:301-634-7241
> email: mfrank_at_the-aps.org
> APS Home Page: http://www.the-aps.org
> ...integrating the life sciences from molecule to organism!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:AMERICAN-
> SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of
> Stevan Harnad
> Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 9:21 AM
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: Re: Mandated Self-Archiving and the "Open Choice" Option
> (fwd)
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:57:45 -0400
> From: Peter Suber <peters_at_earlham.edu>
> Subject: Re: Mandated Self-Archiving and the "Open Choice" Option
>
> > > Perhaps I should have prefaced the question with a recitation and
> > > recognition of the fact that while the purpose is not to help
> publishers> > -- nonetheless, what I'm asking is, are there any
> such benefits to
> > > be realized; have you formulated any indirect benefits that may be
> > > anticipated?
> >
> >I believe I replied to that:
> >
> > (2) benefits to publishers in the form of increased
> > visibility and impact for their journals, which can also draw more
> > subscribers and more authors.
> >
> >There has been reported evidence of both of these. (Perhaps others
> will>be able to cite the sources.)
>
> Here's one bit of evidence. When _Molecular Biology of the Cell_
> adoptedthe policy to provide OA to all its articles within two
> months of
> publication (a comparatively short embargo), it saw both its
> submissionsand its subscriptions increase. It's impact factor
> apparently rose as
> well. The editor's only explanation is the increased visibility of
> thejournal. Here's the interview in which she discusses it.
> http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/archive/?page=features&issue=6
>
> The cause of this effect wasn't self-archiving, but it's clearly
> equivalentto self-archiving at a rate of 100% after a two month delay.
>
> Peter Suber
>
>
>
Received on Tue Jul 04 2006 - 04:53:42 BST