Seminar on Scholarly Communication and the UC Community University of California Office of Systemwide Library Planning Fall 2003

Seminar on Scholarly Communication and the UC Community

University of California

Office of Systemwide Library Planning

Fall 2003

UC Systemwide Library Planning Faculty Seminars Fall 2003

Crisis in Scholarly Communications: Journals

Source: Bear Stearns European Equity Research report on Reed Elsevier. September 29, 2003



Source: Graphic accompanied Weiss, Rick. A Fight for Free Access To Medical Research: Online Plan Challenges Publishers' Dominance. Washington Post. Tuesday, August 5, 2003; Page A01



Average CostPer Title

Average CostPer TitleLC Subject

Classification 1999 2003

Percentage ofIncrease

1999-2003Anthropology 259.21 353.44 36.35

Chemistry 1,682.94 2,403.06 42.79

Education 207.79 305.73 47.13

Engineering 981.19 1,359.52 38.56

Philosophy &Religion

123.27 169.89 37.82

PoliticalScience

208.07 315.00 51.39

Source: Van Orsdel & Born, Library Journal, April 15, 2003


Stress and Unsustainability: commercial publishers’ contributions

PRICE per PAGE PRICE per CITATIONField For-profit non-profit For-profit Non-profitEcology $1.19 $0.19 $0.73 $0.05Economics $0.81 $0.16 $2.33 $0.15Atmos. Sci. $0.95 $0.15 $0.88 $0.07Mathematics $0.70 $0.27 $1.32 $0.28Neuroscience $0.89 $0.10 $0.23 $0.04Physics $0.63 $0.19 $0.38 $0.05

Note: 66% of the STM journal market is occupied by commercial companies

STM Journal Prices Commercial vs. Non-commercial

Source: Carl T. Bergstrom and Ted C. Bergstrom. The economics of scholarly journal publishing. September 2002 at http://octavia.zoology.washington.edu/publishing/intro.html


Crisis in Scholarly Communications: Reed Elsevier Case Study

25% 32%50%

75% 68%50%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Use (n= 10.2 milliondow nloads)

Titles (n=4736 titles)

Cost

All Others

Elsevier

Elsevier journals cost vs. use at UC 2002-03

Source: UC Systemwide Library Planning, September 2003


Crisis in Scholarly Communications: Reed Elsevier Case Study

Elsevier average title price as percentage of industry-wide average title price*

Agriculture 1,428%

Chemistry & Physics 194%

Engineering 435%

Mathematics, Botany, Geology, General Science 287%

Medicine 209%

Psychology 254%

All subjects 642%

Elsevier is the dominant commercial publisher of STM journals. It has 23% of the market share and over a $1 billion in annual revenues. The next player is the American Chemical Society with 8% market share and $360 million in annual revenues* For 2002; calculated within disciplines; overall average based on 2003 Bowker Annual table entitled "U.S. Periodicals: Average Prices and Price Indexes"; Elsevier averages from list prices.


Crisis in Scholarly Communications: Monographs

Source: Bear Stearns European Equity Research report on Reed Elsevier. September 29, 2003


Crisis in Scholarly Communications: Monographs

0

200,000

400,000

600,000

800,000

1,000,000

1,200,000

1988-89 1992-93 1996-97 2000-01

Book Titles Published Worldwide

Growth in Worldwide Book Publishing. 1988-2002

Volumes


Crisis in Scholarly Communications: Societies

Sample of Society Titles Now Published by Blackwell

Disciplines Avg. price increase N (titles)

‘03-’04

Humanities & Soc. Sci. 15.7% 30

STM 19.4 30

All 17.6 60

Source: UC Systemwide Library Planning, September 2003


Crisis in Scholarly Communications: Society Case Study - AAAS’s Science

UC Systemwide Subscription for Science

$31,050 $34,590 $34,590

$61,000

$93,000

$0$20,000$40,000$60,000$80,000

$100,000

2000

2001

2002

2003

(un

der

nego

tiatio

n)

2004

(un

der

nego

tiatio

n)

Year


Alternative Forms of Scholarly Communication1. Personal and Departmental web pages


Alternative Forms of Scholarly Communication2. Discipline based repositories (e.g. arXiv - a Physics/Comp.Sci./Math working paper repository)


Alternative Forms of Scholarly Communication

3. Institutional repositories

UC’s eScholarship Repository (as at October 2003)

# of departments, ORU’s, MRU’s participating: 119# of papers deposited to date: 2291# of papers downloaded last week: 8139# of downloads since 04/02 launch: 230,000% of downloads from outside UC: 97# of countries from which people link: 76# of sites that link to the repository: 1608


Alternative Forms of Scholarly Communication4. Competitively priced journals Machine Learning Journal

Publisher: KluwerPrice: $1050/yearNumber of defecting editorial board members in 2001: 40

Journal of Machine Learning ResearchEst. 2001, with help from SPARCPublisher: MIT PressPrice: $195/year

One of 16 alternative journals supported in part by SPARC – “motivated by service to the research community rather than by profit.”

Source: SPARC web site and Ted Bergstrom’s Journal Pricing Page


Alternative Forms and Economic SustainabilitySimulated Price Projections for Three Journal Models

Based on 9% Annual Price Increase for Subscription Models

Time

Su

bs

cri

pti

on

Pri

ce

Commercial Publishers Competitively Priced Journals Open Access Journals


Alternative Forms of Scholarly Communication

4. Open-access journals• ~100 journals• author publication charges• institutional memberships can replace

author charges

• author publication charges• 11 UC faculty on editorial board• 16 UC faculty represented in opening issues

• 551 journals listed•19 journals added this month• funded by the Open Society Institute – Budapest & SPARC


Potential for UC faculty action

As authorsRetain some rights in your publicationsPlace articles with high-quality alternatives to high-cost publications

As editors, reviewers, and authors: Favor reasonably priced journals

As editorsConsider moving journals from publishers with unreasonable pricing

practices

As library usersSupport and encourage the library’s aggressive negotiating stance

with uncompetitively priced publishers even where that stance potentially results in title cuts


Potential for UC faculty action

As participants in faculty promotions and rewards processesImplement promotion criteria that emphasize quality

without discouraging publication in fairly priced and open-access publications

As society membersEncourage societies’ adoption or maintenance of

reasonable pricing mechanism

Encourage societies to lead in the search for sustainable publishing models


Potential for collective institutional action at UC

• Leverage existing agencies able to support new modes of scholarly publishing (e.g. the Press, the libraries’ eScholarship program), supplementing them where appropriate

• Take a lead in national bodies such as AAU in identifying & mobilizing effective coordinated national actions


UC Scholarly Communication Faculty Seminars

END

Documents

Seminar on Scholarly Communication and the UC Community University of California Office of Systemwide Library Planning Fall 2003