To continue the theme of views of scholarly publishing, I thought it would be
appropriate to repost (with the author's permission) the following
discussion of the perspective that publishers of scholarly journals have
on the issues of proliferation of journals and increasing
subscription prices. This discussion first appeared in The Newsletter on
Serials Pricing Issues, and subscription information on the Newsletter is
included for those who are interested in this topic.
My feeling is that the success of the physics e-print archives at Los Alamos
indicates that scientists are ready and eager to take advantage of electronic
publishing, and the next step is to do the experiment (ie start a peer-reviewed
electronic journal, either as a bionet newsgroup or as a WWW site). Success of
such a journal would probably depend in large part on the credibility and
prestige of the scientists involved with editing the journal, just as is true
of new journals in the print format. The challenge is to identify a group of
researchers with the credibility and prestige to make such a journal work, and
to design an organizational structure that allows the work of publishing a
peer-reviewed journal to get done without overwhelming the people who do
the work. University presses have expertise in typesetting and journal
production, university libraries have money to buy journals, and university
faculty have expertise in specific fields of research. I do not see a need
for commercial publishers in scholarly communication, and I think that removing
the profit motive from scholarly publishing would make my work as a scientist
much easier.
Ross Whetten
Research Assistant Professor
Forest Biotechnology Group
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-8008 USA
telephone or fax (919)515-7801
e-mail rosswhet at unity.ncsu.edu
----------------- begin included text -----------------------------------
From: Marcia Tuttle <tuttle at gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <prices at gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: NO 136 -- PRICING NEWSLETTER
Volume 0, number 136 ISSN: 1046-3410
NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES
NO 136 -- April 2, 1995
Editor: Marcia Tuttle
[stuff deleted]
136.5 HAMAKER'S HAYMAKERS
Chuck Hamaker, Louisiana State University, NOTCAH at LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU.
Danny Jones, in the most recent issue of NSPI, wonders where publishers and
vendors are coming from projecting price increases of 10% or more for next
year. Surely, he reasons, they are not listening to the market.
Danny has it right. They are not listening to THIS market, the library
market, because they have a basic insight into publishing processess that
has taught them the ONLY market that makes a difference in their success or
failure is how they perform in the competition for the flow of publishable
papers.
Or, as one publisher said recently, there is an upstream market and a down-
stream market. Guess which market libraries are?
Conventional publisher wisdom which I have heard expressed for as long as I
have been engaged in talking with STM publishers is that at the end of the
day, no matter what happens, if there are enough authors clamoring to be
published, enough libraries will buy the product. Remember Maxwell opined
that if there were so many cancellations that only 1 copy of a journal was
going to be sold, the price on that one copy would just simply be very
high.
What Robert Maxwell was saying is that prices will just simply be raised on
"remaining" subscriptions, no matter how high the price increase has to be.
That is, publishers do not notice cancellations as a MARKET message because
sales to libraries are a secondary although necessary by-product of their
editorial and gathering operations.
Yes, they charge what the market will bear, but in the end, they believe
there will ALWAYS be market for their product as long as they have "good"
product to sell. This explains in part why someone like our friend in Swit-
zerland does not really mind if some librarians don't like his lawsuits.
He KNOWS some libraries HAVE to buy his product no matter what the librar-
ians think about his firm. This confidence in product, in the necessity of
their product, is common to all STM publishers.
And although they notice declining sales, their confidence is such that the
only response many of them consider appropriate, because their loyalty is
to stockholders and "authors," is to raise the price of their product high
enough to maintain "adequate" margins. They have a full year in advance in
payment to think about how high to raise the price, a twelve month safety
margin built into their product, an inviolable safety net.
I asked a publishing representative: "if you lost half your subscription
base in a year would that cause you to kill a journal?" The answer was an
unequivocal NO, as long as there was good paper flow. However low the core
subscription list goes, there will, so the belief goes, be a base of cus-
tomers who will pay whatever price is necessary.
This is an elitist attitude, ingrained, systemic to publishing. But only in
STM journal publishing has it become entrenched with the money to back it
up. Trade book publishers live in search of the great best-seller. STM
journal publishers dream of the journal that grows. Libraries dream of the
lowest price. Paperflow dreams and price dreams. Competing dreams that
touch only at the boundary where we exchange currency and buy THEIR dreams.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Statements of fact and opinion appearing in the _Newsletter on Serials
Pricing Issues_ are made on the responsibility of the authors alone, and do
not imply the endorsement of the editor, the editorial board, or the Uni-
versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Readers of the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES are encouraged to share
the information in the newsletter by electronic or paper methods. We would
appreciate credit if you quote from the newsletter.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES (ISSN: 1046-3410) is published by
the editor through the Office of Information Technology at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as news is available. Editor: Marcia
Tuttle, Internet: tuttle at gibbs.oit.unc.edu; Paper mail: Serials Department,
CB #3938 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel
Hill NC 27514-8890; Telephone: 919 962-1067; FAX: 919 962-4450. Editorial
Board: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Christian Boissonnas (Cornell
University), Jerry Curtis (Springer Verlag New York), Janet Fisher (MIT
Press), Fred Friend (University College London), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana
State University), Daniel Jones (University of Texas Health Science Cen-
ter), James Mouw (University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's
Periodicals Division). The Newsletter is available on the Internet, Black-
well's CONNECT, and Readmore's ROSS. EBSCO customers may receive the News-
letter in paper format.
To subscribe to the newsletter send a message to LISTSERV at UNC.EDU saying
SUBSCRIBE PRICES [YOUR NAME]. Be sure to send that message to the listserv-
er and not to Prices. You must include your name. To unsubscribe (no name
required in message), you must send the message from the e-mail address by
which you are subscribed. If you have problems, please contact the editor.
Back issues of the Newsletter are available electronically. To get a list
of available issues send a message to LISTSERV at UNC.EDU saying INDEX PRICES.
To retrieve a specific issue, the message should read: GET PRICES PRICES.xx
(where "xx" is the number of the issue).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****ENDOFFILE*****
--
Ross Whetten
Research Assistant Professor
