History and Hysteria
Carol Tenopir
University of Tennessee
&
Donald W. King
Society of Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting
June 1, 2000
Towards Electronic Journals:Bytes Out of Myths and
Bits of Reality
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
0
10,000,000
20,000,000
30,000,000
40,000,000
50,000,000
60,000,000
70,000,000
80,000,000
Growth of Scholarly Journals
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
Growth of Internet Domains
0
10,000,000
20,000,000
30,000,000
40,000,000
50,000,000
60,000,000
70,000,000
80,000,000
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Source: Internet Software Consortium Domain Survey available at <http://www.isc.org/ds/hosts.html>
Carol Tenopir and Donald W. King. Towards Electronic Journal: Realities for Scientists, Librarians, and Publishers. Washington, D.C.: Special Libraries Association, 2000.
Questions
1 Are scholarly journals worth saving?
2 What are the price and demand relationships?
3 Why have journal prices spiraled upward?
4 Where do we go from here?
Trends in the Use, Usefulness,
and Value of Scholarly Journals
Average Number of Scholarly Article Readings Per Year
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1977 1978-1983
1984 1985-1989
1990-1993
1994-1998
Years of Observation
Time Spent Reading
0
50
100
150
200
1977 1984 1993/1994
University Non-University
Facts Behind the Myths
• Growth of journal literature is correlated with the number of scientists
• 70% of all readings are done by non-academicians
Why these myths?
1 Citation counts do not measure all readings
2 The data from some studies done in the 1960s and 1970s was misinterpreted
Estimated Number of Readings
• The extrapolated estimate is about 520 readings per article
• In reality the number is closer to 860
• A current estimate is about 900 readings per article
Amount of Journal Readings
• Scientists read from an average of 18 journals each year
• Only one of 18 have over 25 readings
• Half are read less than five times
• Increasingly users are relying on a variety of sources for information
Growth of...
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
1839
1849
1859
1869
1879
1889
1899
1909
1919
1929
1939
1949
1959
1969
1979
1989
1999
0
10,000,000
20,000,000
30,000,000
40,000,000
50,000,000
60,000,000
70,000,000
80,000,000
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Scholarly Journals
Internet Domains
WWW Impact
• PubMed searches reached up to 400,000 per day in 1998
• A month worth of searches in PubMed equaled a year of MEDLINE searches (about 7.6 million)
University Scientists’ Use
• Electronic journal use depends on the field of science
• Studies show about 50% of faculty prefer electronic journals
Usefulness & Value ofScholarly Articles
• Information serves many purposes
• Highly important to these purposes
• Readers are willing to pay a high price for the information in their time
• The information results in improved performance
Scholarly Journals Examined from a Systems Perspective
• Several 1970s studies for NSF
• Identified/characterized functions, participants, input resources & outputs of hundreds of activities
• Assessed current & future effects of technologies & other resources
Total Cost(excluding $’s exchanged)
• 1977 $16 billion (1998 $)
• 1998 $45 billion
Average System Costs
• $5900• $7200
• $65• $60
Per Scientist Per Reading1977
1998
Trends on System Costs
• Scientists’ costs are up
• Library resources costs are down
• Publishing resource costs are down
The Question!!!
Why have average prices risen by a factor of nearly 10 times over a period of time in which the relative cost of publishing has actually decreased?
To understand price one must understand publishing costs
• Five publishing functions:– Article processing (= $190,000)– Non-article processing (= $19,500)– Reproduction (= $101,000)– Distribution (= $80,500)– Support (= $168,500)– Total (= $559,500)
Average Cost per Subscription
$0
$100
$200
$300
$400
$500
$600
$700
$800
500 1,000 2,500 5,000 10,000
Number of Subscriptions
What do average prices mean?
• Price per journal
• Price per subscription
• Price per article
• Price per page
Cost per Subscriber
QuartileCirculation
RangeAve Circ
w/in RangeCost per
Subscriber
0-25% 150-900 520 $747
26-50% 901-1900 1,310 $316
51-75% 1,901-5,700 3,290 $145
76-100% 5,701+ 18,100 $53
Average Annual Price Increase (%) in Scientific Journals
0.00%1.00%2.00%3.00%4.00%5.00%6.00%7.00%8.00%9.00%
1960-1975
1967-1986
1972-1988
1975-1995
1991-1995
1995-1998
Time Periods Examined
Causes & Consequences of Spiraling Prices
• Inflation & increased size
• Triggers in the 1970s
• Personal & library subscription elasticities
• High fixed costs
• Readers, libraries & publishers all lose
• Yet, journal system costs have not changed
Why have journal prices spiraled upward?
• Size and Inflation—56%
• Drop in personal subscriptions
• Addition of new, low-circulation journals—17%
• McCabe thesis
• High profit/net revenue
Costs of Low-Circulation Journals
2,500 – 2,400
2,000 – 1,900
1,500 – 1,400
1,000 – 900
500 – 400
$6
8
18
41
186
Drop Required Cost
Average Number of Personal Subscriptions to Scholarly Journals
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
1977 1978-1983
1984 1985-1989
1990-1993
1994-1998
Years of Observation
Proportion of Readings of Scholarly Scientific Articles
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Personal Library-Provided Other
1977 1993-1998
What factors affect demand?
• Price
• Journal attributes
• Availability & relative cost of alternatives
• Combinations of distribution means and media are finding a niche
What are we really buying?
Two components of costs/price
• Article processing
• Distribution/access
Article processing
• Wide range of quoted costs
• Costs similar for paper & electronic versions
• Range of cost a moot point
Distribution/Access
• Electronic distribution.access costs negligible
• Paper subscription ($25-$35 per subscription)
• Paper separate copy ($15-$30 per item)
• Paper subscription costs per reading is low for frequently read journals
• Paper versions may cost less for some journals when scientist costs are included
Some merit in considering alternative sources of revenue to recover article processing costs
Number of Separate Copies of Articles Received by Scientists
1977 1993-1998
ILL/Document Delivery
4 million >40 million
Other 39 million >60 million
43 million >100 million
Some alternative pricing policies
• Site licenses
• Differential pricing
• Unit pricing
• No magic bullet
Where Do We Go From Here?
• New and specialized journals will be electronic
• Journal availability in print and electronic
• Impact of full-text databases
• Emphasis on accessibility of information
• Time is valuable
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