Re: OA in High Energy Physics Arxiv Yields Five-Fold Citation Advantage

From: C.Oppenheim_at_lboro.ac.uk <C.Oppenheim_at_LBORO.AC.UK>
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:05:43 +0100

    [ The following text is in the "windows-1257" character set. ]
    [ Your display is set for the "iso-8859-1" character set. ]
    [ Some special characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]

When the Houghton Report on the economic benefits of OA was released earlier this year, one of the major criticisms of it by the publishing industry was that the industry had not been consulted in the calculation of the figures of costs of activities by publishers. I responded that we HAD talked to scholarly publishers, and a few had given us figures, but had asked for those figures to be kept strictly confidential and we were not to reveal our sources. The publishers complaining about the Houghton report were scornful about this reply.

Tony Hey, Alma Swan and David Prosser are criticising Sally for being unable to back up her statements in any way. Sally perhaps now knows how I felt when the publishing community were so dismissive of the Houghton Report figures.....

 Charles


Professor Charles Oppenheim
Head
Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE11 3TU

Tel 01509-223065
Fax 01509 223053
e mail c.oppenheim_at_lboro.ac.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of Sally Morris
Sent: 21 July 2009 21:40
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: OA in High Energy Physics Arxiv Yields Five-Fold Citation Advantage

I merely reported what I was told by my IOPP contacts; clearly, however,
not everyone there agreed with that view. I can't cite it because I can't
now find it (I no longer have access to all the documents I had as ALPSP CEO); I don't see the point in retracting it because I believe that I accurately reported what I was told. Clearly Alma feels she did the same.

We can speculate until we're blue in the face, but whether or not green OA does, in the end, damage subscription journals, of course, only time will tell.

Sally


Sally Morris

South House, The Street

Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK

Tel: +44(0)1903 871286

Fax: +44(0)8701 202806

Email: sally_at_morris-assocs.demon.co.uk


-----Original Message-----
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of Alma Swan
Sent: 21 July 2009 13:32
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: OA in High Energy Physics Arxiv Yields Five-Fold Citation Advantage

> Since my informants are no longer at IOP, I can't give you chapter and
> verse, but assure you I'm not making it up (and it was about
subscriptions).
> I recall a speaker at an ALPSP seminar telling us much the same story
> for London Mathematical Society journals.

My concern is not about whether *you* make things up but about the fact that yesterday on this list you told everyone that *I* do.

What my informant (undoubtedly the same individual as your informant) at IOPP also volunteered, and which I also reported at the time, was that the rate of subscription attrition had remained the same for *all* IOPP journals over the time arXiv had been in existence, hence no arXiv-specific effect was apparent. That is, IOPP publishes many journals outside the fields covered by arXiv and they, too, were experiencing subscription attrition (at the same rate as those in fields covered by arXiv.

I append below some other quotes provided to me and approved for publication by the two physics society publishers at the time. Readers can then decide for themselves whether those two societies were saying that self-archiving was threatening their business [by undermining subscriptions], or not:

Institute of Physics Publishing:
"IOPP's experience as a learned society publisher illustrates the strong synergies and mutual benefits that currently exist between major peer-reviewed journals, such as our Classical and Quantum Gravity, and the arXiv e-print server. Both systems continue to serve the scientific community very effectively. Journals act as the "brand", setting standards for scientific quality. Our authors and editors tell us that they value publishing in a peer-reviewed journal because this continues as an essential requirement for establishing reputation and authority of the research they publish. Whilst posting an pre-print or post-print is becoming more of an essential in some areas of the physics community for immediate and wide dissemination. We do not see the arXiv or repositories threatening our business."

N.B. Since then, the IOPP has established, and manages, the UK's mirror site for arXiv.

The APS (American Physical Society):
³We don't consider it [arXiv] a threat. We expect to continue to have a symbiotic relationship with arXiv. As long as peer review is valued by the community (and it seems to be), we will be doing peer review.²

³ [We have] tried to cooperate closely with arXiv including establishing a mirror (jointly with Brookhaven National Laboratory)... We also revised our copyright statement to be explicitly in favor of author self-archiving.
These efforts strengthened (rather than weakened) Physical Review D [an APS journal that covers high-energy physics] ?..I would say it is likely we maintained subscriptions to Physical Review D that we may otherwise have lost if we hadn't been so pro-arXiv ?.²

Alma Swan
Key Perspectives Ltd
Truro, UK
Received on Wed Jul 22 2009 - 11:16:07 BST