Thank you for this thoughtful post (and not not mentioning any Pit Bulls, a
subject with which I share Prof. Harnad's impatience.)
I take mild exception to just a few points. First, with a few exceptions, it
is generally not true that the publishing departments of large society
publishers are run as "arms-length quasi-commercial activities." Among
members of the DC Principles group, for example, must publishers report to a
volunteer publications committee of some sort, which has to power to
strongly influence or direct staff to change business models.
The reason that many large nonprofits are more allied with commercial
publishers than with OA advocates--even though they share with OA a desire
for wider distribution of knowledge--is that they believe the push for Gold
and, to a lesser extent, Green OA will jeopardize their ability to achieve
their missions and serve their constituents.
That raises a second point: it is not quite on target to say that "a major
reason for societies existence" is "scholarly communication." Medical
societies usually exist to cure a specific disease and to improve the
treatment and quality of life for those affected by the disease until a cure
comes. Scholarly communication is certainly one aspect of achieving such a
mission, but only one. Research, professional education, patient education,
public awareness, and advocacy also play important roles. Thus there is
great caution to upset a business model--even one with a finite
lifespan--that continues to provide net income to fund mission-focused
activities.
Many of my society publisher clients are in a quandary about what to do.
They are sympathetic to some of the goals of OA, but do not believe that
Gold OA will ever provide a sound and sustainable business model. They wish
to accommodate to Green OA as much as possible, but worry about its
unintended consequences--not only in potentially undermining subscriptions,
but also in leading to the proliferation of versions of manuscripts of
varying states of polish with no established procedures for coordinating
errata, issuing retractions, or ensuring public safety if medical
information like dosages turns out to be wrong.
In the end, what is most likely for nonprofits is not some revolutionary new
business model, but the evolution of the existing one, with a continued
reliance on a diverse revenue base (subscriptions, advertising, reprints,
royalties, etc.) but perhaps a steadily increasing amount of freely
available material and the development of new revenue streams (special
sponsored publications or Web sites, for example) that keep the pressure off
subscription price increases.
Peter Banks
On 2/1/07 6:27 AM, "J.F.B.Rowland" <J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK> wrote:
> Learned Society publishers are certainly important in scholarly
> communication, and as Dana's figures demonstrate, their prices per page tend
> to be much lower than those of commercial publishers.
>
> It is important to note, though, that learned society journals fall into
> three categories. Large societies run their own in-house publishing
> operations, and in spite of their more reasonable prices, in the OA debate
> they have tended to side with the commercial publishers. This is probably
> because their publishing departments are run as arms-length quasi-commercial
> activities anyway, and are not run on a day-to-day basis by the voluntary
> officers of the society. Middle-sized societies often publish through a
> commercial publisher, so any statements about OA will tend to be made by
> their commercial partner rather than the society itself. Small societies
> may publish themselves on a more or less amateur basis, with members of the
> society doing much of the work, assisted by a small number of largely
> clerical/administrative staff. In my experience, this last group are often
> sympathetic to the principled argument for OA, but they can see no OA
> business model that would give them any sense of long-term security.
>
> There is a clear and urgent need for business models that can enable
> not-for-profit learned societies to be active in the long term in scholarly
> communication - which is a major reason for societies' existence, after
> all - in a future that is inceasingly OA, whether green or gold. Such
> models do not exist at present, in my view.
>
> Fytton Rowland, Loughborough University.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dana Roth" <dzrlib_at_LIBRARY.CALTECH.EDU>
> To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
> Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 12:52 AM
> Subject: Re: PR's 'pit bull' ... A final thought?
>
>
> I find it somewhat surprising that there has been very little mention of
> the importance of scientific societies in the publication of their
> respective scholarship.
>
> I was reminded of this by an ironic news item in the latest Elsevier
> Library Connect newsletter
> http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/lcn/0501/lcn050107.html entitled "A
> Student Perspective on the Serials Crisis".
>
> This article was based on a Master of Engineer Project in Cornell's
> School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering designed as an
> "Operational Analysis of Scholarly Journal Publication and Access
> Alternatives in the Digital Age." Their "call to action was a call for
> compromise from all sides: Authors pay a little, libraries continue
> paying via reduced subscription fees, and publishers reducing fees and
> broadening revenue streams.
>
> This is exactly the business model currently followed by the
> Electrochemical Society and the Society for Neuroscience and was the
> general practice for society publications (e.g. ACS, APS) before Robert
> Maxwell and the crush of commercial journals which began in the 1960s.
>
> Because of their very modestly funded business model, societies were
> reluctant to publish new titles, a chore that commercial publishers
> relished because they did not require author page charges and could
> easily afford to launch new titles with revenue from their substantial
> profits.
>
> I hope we can put the 'Serials Problem' in perspective and recognize
> that society publishers are and will continue to be absolutely essential
> and that the main cause of the problem we are discussing is commercial
> journal profit margins.
>
> In this regard, compare, for example, the 2005 price/page for:
>
> Inorganic Chemistry(ACS) $0.26
> Inorganica Chim. Acta(Els) $1.88
>
> Organic Letters(ACS) $0.65
> Tetrahedron Letters(Els) $1.60
>
> Biomacromolecules(ACS) $0.30
> Biopolymers(Wiley) $3.70
>
> The avoidance of distinguishing between society and commercial
> publishers seems disingenuous at best and the distinction must be part
> of any serious discussion. Additional data is available at
> http://journalprices.com/
>
> Dana L. Roth
> Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32
> 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125
> 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540
> dzrlib_at_library.caltech.edu
> http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm
>
Peter Banks
Banks Publishing
Publications Consulting and Services
10332 Main Street #158
Fairfax, VA 22030
(703) 591-6544
CELL (703) 254-8862
FAX (703) 383-0765
pbanks_at_bankspub.com
www.bankspub.com
www.associationpublisher.com/blog/
Received on Thu Feb 01 2007 - 15:18:12 GMT