LIBR 559L Scholarly Communications

Commercial Scholarly Publishing in an Age of Transition

Martin RoseJune 14th, 2011

Where are we now? A “Serials Crisis” Academic library budgets are shrinking Journal subscription prices keep rising Four largest corporations – Elsevier, Springer, Wiley

and Taylor & Francis – dominate the market Libraries locked into “Big Deals” for 3 to 5 years

(Morrision, 2009) and (Masterton, 2006)

Role of Bibliometrics

Bradford's Law 1930's Eugene Garfield (Institute for Scientific Information)

SCI (Science Citation Index) 1950's Peer Review (King makers)

(Guedon, 2001)

What about Open Access? The current worldwide system of Scientific, Technical and

Medical (STM) publishing has evolved over hundreds of years, and we believe it serves science and medical communities well.

Open Access’ author-pays model risks penalising the countries that produce the highest number of articles.

The Open Access business model in its current form has not proven its financial viability.(Elsevier, 2004)

Room for NegotiationIn 2008 Total revenue from STM journal publishing was $8

billion. Forcasts predict a 3.7% increase per year so that

revenues should be around $13 billion in 2013(Ware, 2009) and (Strempel, 2010)

In 2009 Elsevier’s operating profit margin was 34.9% John Wiley & Sons reported 41% of the revenue in its

STMS division as a direct contribution to profit(Strempel, 2010)

...and this was a year when the industry experienced about 2% negative growth in revenues (image: Google Finance Canada http://tinyurl.com/44xkscq)

A Pragmatic Approach

“While a compelling and legitimate case can be made for restructuring the economics of scholarly publishing... such a reformation frames the change in terms of philosophical principles and political imperatives.

Income models, however, are indifferent business mechanisms. Their market implications are driven by the financial and mission motivations of the individual publishers that implement them, not by the intrinsic nature of the model itself.”Raym Crow – SPARC Senior Consultant (Crow, 2009)

More than just money... Top four largest publishers account for about 7000

journal titles. Nearly 19,000 employees (not all working with

journals) All four have a global presence with offices all over

the world including China, Southeast Asia and South America

All are also investing heavily in enhancing the online experience for researchers.

Elsevier saw over 65% of its journal impact factors increase from 2008 to 2009

Elsevier journals took the #1 position in 57 of 230 categories (up from 51 of 229 the prior year) across all of the sciences and social sciences(Strempel, 2010)

They have over 1000 titles that achieved an impact factor rating and nearly 25% of those are in the top 10 of their subject category.

36 titles achieved a number one ranking according to Thomson ISI 2009 Journal Citation Reports.(Strempel, 2010)

PEER Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER)

Mandate is to research the effects of final peer reviewed manuscripts being deposited in OA Institutional Repositories

Program is funded by the EU (major funder for European research)

Actively supported by several well known publishers including Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell and Taylor & Francis

Source: http://www.peerproject.eu/

Are Attitudes Changing? “Wiley Open Access” launching in 2011

http://www.wileyopenaccess.com Elsevier has allowed authors to self archive in their

open access institutional repository since July 2004. Taylor & Francis offer a “Gold” OA scheme for 320 of

their journals. Springer also offer a group of journals that offer

“Gold” OA under the name “SpringerOpen”

ReferencesCrow, R. (2009). Income models for open access: An overview of current practice. Scholarly Publishing &

Academic Resources Coalition. Retrieved on 27th May, 2011 from http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/papers/imguide.shtml

Elsevier comments on possible implications of Open Access journals for the U.K. (2004, 17th February). Elesvier.com. Retrieved 13th June, 2011 from http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews05_00077.

Guedon, J. (2001). In Oldenburg's Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing. Washington, D.C: Association of Research Libraries.

Masterson, M. and Strempel, D., (2006). Open access: Market challenges and opportunities. Stamford, CT: Simba Information.

Morrison, H. (2009). Scholarly communication for librarians. Chandos information professional series. Chandos Pub.

Reed Elsevier (2010) Description of business. Retrieved 13 th June, 2011 from http://reports.reedelsevier.com/ar09/business/elsevier-description.html

Strempel, D. and Kilkelly, S., ed. (2010). Global professional publishing report 2009-2010. Stamford, CT: Simba Information.

Wallace, J. and Armbruster, C. (2010) Annual Report – Year 2. Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER). Retrieved 13th June, 2011 from http://www.peerproject.eu/fileadmin/media/reports/D9_8_annual_public_report_20100930.pdf.

Ware, M. and Mabe, M. (2009). The STM report: An overview of scientific and scholarly publishing. Oxford: International Assocation of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers.