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Electronic and virtual publications Do Open Access articles have greater research impact? An article by Kristin Antelman in College and Research Libraries September 2004 shows that they do. ISI have published an updated article (Oct.2004) on the relative citation and immediacy of open Access journals across a number of disciplines within the ISI JCR.
Change in coverage of OA journals within ISI JCR from February 2004 to June 2004. (source: McVeigh: OA journals in the ISI database: Analysis of Impact Factors & citations patterns: Oct 2004 ) Technology Review is enabling users to download an exact replica of the magazine that has resulted in immediate growth of its international subscriber base. The cost of an annual “download” subscription is $30 the same as print but faster and cheaper than the $64 international subscription price. "Urgent Action Needed to Preserve Scholarly Electronic Journals" this statement is available at http://www.arl.org/osc/EjournalPreservation_Final.pdf. Endorsement occurred during the ARL Membership Meeting held October 2005. Amedeo - the medical literature guide provides weekly e-mails with bibliographic lists of free medical articles and information http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/. The site asserts "Within the next two years, the most important medical journals will be available online, free and in full-text. The access to free scientific knowledge will have a major impact on medical practice and attract Internet visitors to these journals. Journals that restrict access to their Web sites will lose popularity." The site is supported by educational grants from 8 pharmaceutical companies. Online Community Report - For anyone interested in finding out more about online communities, there are lessons to be learned from the online consumer communities, although all of them translate across to professional publishing effectively. A white paper about digital rights management for e-books. Link rot. We all know the frustration caused by hyper links to web pages that have moved or ceased to exist (see table and graph below). Two researchers have measured the impact of this "link rot" on online education -- and it's not good. (see The Chronicle of Higher Education) Extinction of URLs is dependent on type of domain, after 19 months. |
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Another initiative supported by ARL and SPARC from publishers and journals that do not serve the research community. "Declaring Independence" includes a diagnostic guide for Editors to help answer the question " Is your journal truly serving its community". The site includes data by discipline on the average subscription price for titles plus a rich bibliography. The Promise and Peril of 'Open Access' - For an overview of the current situation on open access based on a series of recent interviews with the stake holders. http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/ Now economists are concerned about journal pricing, and this web site clearly articulates the concerns, and the economic facts and arguments from Ted Bergstrom an Economics professor at UC Santa Barbara. |
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ARL Libraries Total Electronic Serials Expenditures, 1995-2001
Expenditures for electronic serials have increased by 75% in the last two years alone and by 900% since 1994. Data from the ARL Supplementary statistics show that ARL member library expenditure on electronic serials and subscription services have increased from just $11 million when first reported on this survey in 1994-95, to more than $151 million today (see charts). Also, 48 ARL libraries reported another $20.3 million expended on their behalf through centrally funded consortia. In addition to library materials funds, libraries spent $12,578,752 for document delivery and interlibrary loan activities and $25,006,573 for bibliographic utilities, networks, and consortia in 2001-02 from their operating funds (excluding staff costs). Mary M. Case, "A Snapshot in Time: ARL Libraries and Electronic Journal Resources," in ARL: A Bimonthly Report of Research Library Issues and Actions from ARL, CNI, and SPARC , August 2004. Mary’s paper focuses on the seven commercial and seven nonprofit publishers whose electronic titles were most subscribed to by libraries responding to a series of surveys. The study “..confirms that libraries need to be tough when negotiating uses of the resources they need and that support from others on campus has been critical in canceling journal bundles and/or negotiating better terms with publishers”. There is a reportedly rapid pace with which {ARL} libraries are choosing electronic formats and canceling print. A research project is in process at Drexel University to evaluate the economic implications of converting the current journal collection of a university library to an all-digital format. Click here to view an article by Carol Montgomery on the impact of e-journals on library costs. Elsevier and the “big deal” - This article documents some current librarian response to Science Direct pricing for 2003. |
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Online business models and pricing Alexander Street - Pricing models for electronic products - as tangled as ever? For a review of the current pricing models in place for online materials. The price of University Press books - includes the results of a survey which revealed that university press book prices increased by 13.6% 1989-2000 whereas the Consumer Price Index went up by 38.9%. |
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http://www.osti.gov/preprints/ppnsubj.html For the Pre-Print Network - subject pathways - provided by the US Office of Science and Technology Information (OSTI). This segment of the site links to pre-print collections in all of science and medicine. Looking through it will give a sense of how rapidly this form of communication is growing. |
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Copyright in E-mail - A short overview of US copyright protection is included in the article "Copyright in e-mail" by Thomas G. Field. The article addresses all aspects including e-mail discussion lists and is essential reading for any publisher hosting or developing a community of users through e-mail. Oxford University Press scaled up its Open Access experiment with Oxford Open at $2,800 per article and a discount to researchers whose institutions already have a current online subscription. Tenopir and King’s article on “An evidence-based assessment of the impact of the author pays model” is a clear overview of some of the core issues and includes some perhaps surprising facts, such as only 15- 20% of US scientists have authored a refereed article. The American Institute of Physics announced an experiment with the Open Access business model. From January 2005 authors of 3 AIP journals can pay $2,000 for their articles to be freely available online on publication. AIP have made a commitment to reduce their online subscription prices proportional to the uptake of this option. The Wellcome Trust report on “Costs and business models in scientific research publishing” is now available free online. The report, which broadly supports Open Access as a model for publishing research articles, follows on a 2003 report also commissioned by the Trust entitled “An Economic Analysis of Scientific Research Publishing”. Monetise This - For a crisp analysis from “The Economist” of why revenues from web advertising on small sites will not support online publications and for an overview of “Banner-ad Blues.” The immediate problem is simple - too many pages and too few advertisers. The number of pages on which to advertise is increasing with overall Internet use. At the same time, the number of advertisers is falling. As a result of this imbalance, the amount that remaining advertisers are willing to pay is falling. http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/06-03/anderson.html For an interesting retrospective on online only publication of articles by the journal Pediatrics. The article includes plenty of data and analysis on the citation of articles published online versus print. Author perceptions of the differences between print and online publication are also explored. http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-53/iss-8/p35.html For an explanation of the electronic strategy of the American Physical Society and the factors in physics publishing that determine this by James Langer - President of the APS. Much of this article is of direct relevance to all journal publishers. http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/icsu/kingppr.htm "Economic Cost Models of Scientific Scholarly Journals" by Donald W. King and Carol Tenopir. This report establishes trends and provides data regarding authorship, publishing, distribution and use of scientific scholarly journals. |
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