Journal Prices Research Articles

Boundary-Crossing in the Age of Turf

Boundary-Crossing in the Age of Turf Sarah M. Pritchard (bio) A version of this essay was presented at the meeting of the Cultural Studies Association, Berkeley, CA, March 20, 2010 Despite the hype that the peer-reviewed journal is dying and does not fit today's modes of scholarship, the number of journals is flourishing; and the problems of editing and publishing them has become even more complex. The digital environment presents new challenges and also throws into high relief some very old ones, for example copyright and plagiarism. We are well past the early days of electronic journals—when the very phrase meant they were not peer reviewed and not indexed and did not represent the respected literature of a field. Digital content can now include everything from junk to the highest quality—and most expensive—flagship academic books and periodicals. There is a proliferation of business models, by which I mean things like regular subscriptions, a whole range of open access categories, and new forms of bundled or aggregated packages of journals. Is it all a big free-for-all, as some say; or, if not, what differentiates these many products? It is not actually the format or the delivery channel or even the business model. As has been the case for centuries, it is a question of who are the scholars that are producing and editing the information, and what are the institutions—such as universities and publishers—that are hosting and issuing the material. Ultimately it is a matter of who has standing and credibility in a given field. I want to look at that rather traditional problem of validation in the field and what happens as the definitions and scope of the field evolve. This is ultimately what gives birth to so many new journals, as fields of academic and professional interest subdivide into more depth, recombine to articulate wider syntheses, or weave to form interdisciplinary domains. portal is itself a product of this sort of movement and a case study for interdisciplinarity in the field of library science. There may be a chicken-and-egg problem as to which comes first in the dynamics of an evolving discipline. Does the practice change, and gradually the journals catch up? Or, can leaders in a field establish journals with an innovative mission and encourage scholarship to pursue those directions? It is probably a little of both; and, unfortunately, there can be roadblocks and prolonged disconnects no matter which route is taken. [End Page 379] From the start we have defined a broad, contextualized, and multifunctional scope as the mission of portal. The first editors wrote essays on it, the author guidelines have been rewritten several times, and the editorial board is encouraged to do its refereeing with this in mind. Much of this has come from having a board made up of leaders in the field. Since the inception of the journal, we have been seeing significant changes in what libraries need to do on campuses to adapt not only to new forms of scholarly information but also to new ways of organizing campus services, evolving campus constituencies, and, notably, the significant impact of technology on every aspect of higher education. Making these kinds of changes is difficult and requires significant effort to develop resources and understanding, so solid research is needed more than ever to compare alternatives and to demonstrate the efficacy of methods. We seek to publish the kinds of articles that will both help libraries develop these new models and help other campus groups understand the interconnectedness of the issues. Prime examples of this interconnectedness are the development of information technologies, the advocacy around journal pricing for which faculty leadership is key, the digital archiving of e-science data, the design of collaborative space for developing scholarly work, and the changes in student learning that are mandating new services. None of these can be addressed by libraries in some sort of internally focused vacuum. portal seeks articles that are grounded in research and formal analysis; but we are open to a range of methodologies, and we especially encourage—or think we do—articles written by, or jointly with, academic faculty or technology...

Pricing digital publishing: the market for scientific publishing

The market for scientific publishing is dominated by the big publishing houses. Reputation of scientists is attributed by their electronic journals. Ressources on individual and institutional levels are distributed according to bibliometric citation analysis. A balance of market-power could not be established: Library consortia did not impede journal price increases. Neither Internet nor open-access-initiatives could definitely convince of being alternatives. The science system is threatened by an ever increasing commercialisation.

E-journal Consortium: Is it a Success Story Always?

Libraries have experienced many transformations along with time. Scenario has further changed with the information explosion and advent of Internet and telecommunications technologies. Information seeking has become much more complex due to ever increasing amount of data, in both printed and electronic forms, and no single library is self-sufficient to purchase all the books/e-books, journals/e-journals and other library documents within their library budgets. Library consortium is one of the solutions to overcome this problem. However, due to ever increasing prices of journals, vendor dominated market, lack of competition, and for other reasons, question of whether consortium approach, some of the experiences in accessing e-journals through this approach, a viable alternative for journal’s price hike or not? This paper is a case study of CSIR e-journal Consortium and discusses need for consortia, types, advantages and disadvantages of a consortium, problems faced by the consortiums and possible solutions for some of these problems.

Judging Journal Prices: A Cost Index for Academic Journals

Journal prices have long been a matter of controversy. Lacking has been any objective information on costs that could be used to judge whether price increases have been justified by rising costs. Using a rare, publicly available set of data for the American Economic Review , the premier journal in economics, this article normalizes costs for number of issues per annum, number of pages per issue, and print quantities per issue to construct an index for the costs of producing this journal. It shows that costs have in fact increased more slowly than the general rate of inflation and argues that the cost experience of this journal provides a reference point for academic journals generally.

Judging Journal Prices

Journal prices have long been a matter of controversy. Lacking has been any objective information on costs that could be used to judge whether price increases have been justified by rising costs. Using a rare, publicly available set of data for the American Economic Review, the premier journal in economics, this article normalizes costs for number of issues per annum, number of pages per issue, and print quantities per issue to construct an index for the costs of producing this journal. It shows that costs have in fact increased more slowly than the general rate of inflation and argues that the cost experience of this journal provides a reference point for academic journals generally.

The Astronomy Education Research Charter

The Astronomy Education Research Charter is a statement from members of the astronomy education research community. It was originally discussed at the 2007 Astronomy Education Research Symposium. A report of the symposium and a call for public participation in its creation was published in this journal (Price et al. 2008, Astronomy Education Review, 6, 130). Participants of the symposium and members of the general public edited this document via an anonymous wiki from January, 2008 to September, 2008. This published version of the document is authored by all contributors to the wiki, who are represented by the coordinator, Aaron Price, and the coordinating organizations: The American Association of Variable Star Observers and the Wright Center for Science Education at Tufts University. We consider this an ongoing process, and this is just the first version of this document, which is owned by the community. Further revisions are encouraged via the wiki at (uri: http://aavso.org/astroed/index.php/MaiṉPage). The community is welcome to build on this version through other channels as well. In those cases, the wiki may be a useful resource to publicize further work on the charter.

Prices of IUCr journals

Prices of IUCr journals

Why are scholarly journals costly even with electronic publishing?

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the reasons for the high costs of scholarly journals.Design/methodology/approachA brief review of the literature on journal publishing costs is carried out. The paper focuses on the economics of scholarly English language journals published mainly in the USA and Europe, but which are sold worldwide, largely to academic and research libraries.FindingsJournal literature has long played a prominent role in the scholarly communication chain. In recent decades, however, the scholarly communication system has been facing a crisis due to the ever‐escalating costs of journals. Two of the features of the journal publishing industry cited a decade ago and still valid today are a lack of competition and perverse incentives. “First‐copy cost” is reported to be the main reason for high journal prices both in print and electronic publishing.Originality/valueThe paper provides a useful overview to researchers and document supply librarians, enabling them to achieve quickly a clear picture of journal publishing industry costs.

Collaboration, not confrontation

The potential social benefits of open access (however it is defined) appear to be significant. More research information is readily available than ever before and there is every indication that the amount will increase. There is a rising tide of enthusiasm for institutional, funder or government mandates that will result in some measure of increased free access, although relatively few of these initiatives actually make the final versions of peer-reviewed articles freely available immediately upon publication. Perhaps in the same way that we have been willing to sacrifice the clarity and reliability of the old landline telephones for the ease and ubiquity of cell phones, we will find that the power of unedited manuscript articles is a sufficient trade-off. It is still too early to tell what the unintended consequences of this focus on open-access mandates might be. Unfortunately, what has passed for discussion among the interested parties in this arena has been marked with rancour, accusation and a dedicated unwillingness to consider whether the objections and issues of those on the “other side” (whichever side that is) have any merit at all. Open access advocates, convinced of the moral superiority of their position, have turned to legislative mandates, such as the public access policy of the National Institutes of Health,1 as a way of forcing a degree of open access. This has caused many publishers to dig in their heels, claiming the ultimate destruction of publishing as we know it, as they try to retain some measure of control in the face of withering scorn and vituperation.2 The fighting wastes a tremendous amount of valuable energy. Much of the energy on both sides of the debate over the past year has focused on arguments for or against the “Fair copyright in research works act,” which was introduced in the Congress of the United States of America in September 2008.3 One might be forgiven for wondering how much further advanced we might be in truly taking advantage of the opportunities before us if we had figured out a way to get the stakeholders together productively rather than allowing emotion, frustration over a history of high journal prices, defensiveness and a penchant for hyperbolic rhetoric to turn the discussion into a fight among advocates who have already drawn their lines in the sand. The Chicago Collaborative, still in its early stages, is one attempt to escape this cycle of contentious advocacy.4 Initiated by a taskforce of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries, the founding members of the Collaborative include representatives from several of the major scientific, technical and medical publishing associations, as well as the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the American Association of Medical Colleges. They are united in their belief that a robust scholarly communication future can only be created when all of the stakeholders work together in a collaborative fashion, rather than in the confrontational mode that has characterized the open access debates. Making the results of scientific research more readily available throughout the world is clearly a noble and important goal. Building a sustainable system of scholarly communication that can meet that goal will require reasoned engagement, rather than slogans and banner waving. ■

Journal Prices, Book Acquisitions, and Sustainable College Library Collections

Library collections are economically sustainable only if the rate of increase in costs is no greater than the rate of increase in the library acquisitions budget. Because book prices increase at a much lower rate than journal prices, undergraduate libraries can achieve economic sustainability through a renewed emphasis on books rather than journals. Book-centered collections are consistent with the goals of many undergraduate colleges, and books rather than journals may provide the best teaching resources even in those fields that rely heavily on journals for the communication of original research results.

A Microeconomic perspective on the production of Science and Higher Education

I study two key institutions for the production and diffusion of innovations: universities and scientific journals. First, I argue that, under some circumstances, it is efficient to produce science and teaching in a single institution: universities. Second, I analyse empirically the relationship between scientific journal prices, their quality, their age, as well as the conduct of publishers. Third, I study how the objectives of scientific associations affect competition and entry on the market for scientific journals.Classification JEL – L21, L31, L44, O31, O38.

Prices of IUCr journals

Prices of IUCr journals

국내 학술지 웹DB 구독료 현황과 오픈액세스에 대한 사서의 인식

우리나라 학술지 오픈액세스는 어떤 논의의 출발점을 가지고 진행되어야 할까? 본 논문은 오픈액세스 촉발점이 되었던 서구의 학술지 위기 현상이 국내에도 나타나고 있는지를 살펴보고자 하였다. 이를 위하여 현재 국내 대학도서관 에서 우리나라 학술지 웹DB 가격의 상승률과 이에 대한 대학도서관 사서들의 인식을 조사하였다. 그 결과 지난 십년간 우리나라 대학도서관에서 국내 학술지 웹DB의 가격은 적게는 1.3배에서 많게는 34배까지 증가한 것으로 나타났다. 그러나 현재의 웹DB 가격이 아주 비싸다고 인식하는 사서는 많지 않았으며, 향후 도서관에 위기가 될 정도로 그 가격이 상승할 것이라고 예측하는 사서들은 설문응답자의 35%정도였다. 이러한 현황에 비추어볼때 적어도 국내의 오픈액세스는 '학술지 위기'가 주된 논의의 출발점이 되기보다는, 그것의 또 다른 가치인 공공의 선, 사회정의의 차원에서 논의될 필요가 있다고 보인다. What is the starting point of discussions for the open access of Korean journals? This study analyzed whether the serials crisis in Western societies are in academic libraries in Korea. The rising of prices of Korean electronic journals in academic libraries and recognition of librarians for it were surveyed. This study found that the subscription fees for web DBs of Korean journals have been increased from 1.3 times to 34 times during the last 10 years. But librarians in the universities did not think that the subscription fees are very high. And the 35% of respondents thought that the subscription fees for the web DBs in academic libraries will be increased to bring to a crisis to libraries. This study suggested that the leading groups of discussions for open access in Korea wilt be interested in the aspects of public goods and social justice, another values of open access.

Journal Prices Revisited: A Regression Analysis of Prices in the Scholarly Journal Market

Increasing prices of scholarly journals have been subject to fierce discussion for several decades. In this paper the authors integrate influence factors of journal prices analyzed in different previous studies in a unified regression model based on current data. Three different models are calculated. In the first model (overall market) the largest influence was found for the size of the journal. Additionally, the authors calculate separate regression models for STM (Scientific, Technical, Medical) vs. HSS (Humanities and Social Sciences) journals and for for-profit vs. not-for-profit journals. The first comparison found that the influence of the number of published articles is much lower for HSS journals. The comparison between for-profit and not-for-profit journals showed that the influence of the circulation of a journal on its price is higher in the for-profit segment.

FRPAA and NIH Mandate

Society publishers are encouraged to view recent “Open Access” proposals as opportunities to expand access and balance subscription pricing with author contributions. This approach would hopefully avoid the difficulties inherent in the deposition and use of pre-publication manuscripts. Examples of reasonably priced society journals are presented along with comparison pricing of society and commercial journals. These examples suggest that society journals should be immune to cancellations, in contrast with the vulnerability of commercial journals.

Journal Prices Revisited: A Regression Analysis of Prices in the Scholarly Journal Market

Increasing prices of scholarly journals have been subject to fierce discussion for several decades. In this paper the authors integrate influence factors of journal prices analyzed in different previous studies in a unified regression model based on current data. Three different models are calculated. In the first model (overall market) the largest influence was found for the size of the journal. Additionally, the authors calculate separate regression models for STM (Scientific, Technical, Medical) vs. HSS (Humanities and Social Sciences) journals and for for-profit vs. not-for-profit journals. The first comparison found that the influence of the number of published articles is much lower for HSS journals. The comparison between for-profit and not-for-profit journals showed that the influence of the circulation of a journal on its price is higher in the for-profit segment.

Trends in journal prices: an analysis of selected journals, 2000–2006

ABSTRACTThis paper presents summary results from an analysis of the institutional subscription prices for journals in biomedical and social sciences, for a selection of 11 publishers. Overall price, price per page, and price per point of impact factor have been examined for the period 2000–2006. Considerable variation was found between publishers both in their overall levels of price and in the rates of increase observed over the period. There is some evidence that not‐for‐profit publishers may, on average, offer better value for money in terms of price per page and price per point of impact factor, but this is far from conclusive.

Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries: Issues and Solutions

Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries: Issues and Solutions is a collection of ten articles about issues of electronic access and use of books and journals in medical libraries. Management of electronic resources has become an essential function for medical libraries. “These papers offer some solutions to the issues surrounding electronic resources, and indicate areas for further research” (p. 3). Subjects of the papers include costs and challenges of shifting collections from print to electronic materials; collaborative arrangements and cost sharing that may save on the cost of bundled electronic journals; models for pricing electronic journals, development of electronic journals, and history of pricing; development of open access scholarly publishing and ways open access affects the pricing of subscription journals; and the issue of open access publishing and desired relief for library budgets. Another topic emerges from the development of the new and primarily digital Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q). The WCMC-Q is the first US medical school located outside the United States. “In Qatar, the Distributed eLibrary is accessed via more than 100 computers placed in offices, classrooms, labs, and clusters throughout the medical branch building and accessible through wired and wireless networks” (p. 28). Cooperative activities—initiatives to improve access to health information in Latin America and the Caribbean regions—offer “a perspective on how such limitations were overcome through the establishment in 1967 of a cooperative network between the Pan American Health Organization and Latin America and Caribbean countries” (p. 42). One instance involves two libraries that collaborate to share an electronic journal management system, TDNet, and reviews the implementation of the system. Another example covers the provision of mediated document delivery to off-campus students from the library's online collections or from interlibrary loan. It is of interest that the program does not require students to find the articles themselves. Other topics include the development of a web-based online catalog that integrated the e-collection and the print collection and the peculiar reluctance of courts to permit suits in negligence and strict liability against publishers for erroneous information that leads to harm (p. 101) and reviews of implications for medical libraries. In searching WorldCat for similar books about electronic information resources, this reviewer identified eight titles, but none were specific to medical libraries aside from this book and the Medical Library Association's DocKit #3: Collection Development and Management for Electronic, Audiovisual, and Print Resources in Health Sciences Libraries [1]. As one of only two books cited in WorldCat, this compilation fills a need and makes helpful suggestions for further research. Technology is advancing so rapidly and e-resources are so vital to health care that this book would be helpful to medical libraries in managing resources.

The Crisis in Scholarly Publishing: Open Access to the Rescue?

The world of scientific publishing is in crisis Traditionally, research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health ( NIH) and other funding sources. Research is con­ducted and reported by investigators, who submit their intellectual property to publishers. Publishers produce and disseminate the work. Libraries, institutions, and individuals pay for access to this scientific information. This cycle was thrown off in the past two decades as journal prices began to increase astronomically.

Open-access publishing at what cost?

Dylla replies to Phipps: It does seem inappropriate to pay $19 for a one-page download of an 18-year-old article. But one has to dig below the surface to understand the economics of scientific journal publishing as a context for the pricing of such journal products by nonprofit publishers.The American Institute of Physics (AIP) publishes several of the most highly cited and subscribed-to physics journals (for example, Applied Physics Letters and the Journal of Applied Physics ), and also provides publishing services for many of its member societies, including the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers, publisher of the American Journal of Physics. Producing a high-quality, peer-reviewed archival journal such as AJP involves significant costs, including those for a reliable online platform that has made AJP and other member-society journals available to a much wider audience than did the former print-only subscriptions. AIP has also made major investments to digitize and make available electronically journal issues that were published in print long before the industry made the transition to digital. Those real costs are recovered, by and large, through institutional subscriptions paid by libraries and research institutions. The cost of producing one typical article is between $1500 and $3000. Considering the average journal subscriber base, a $20 price for a non-subscriber to download an article is not out of line.AIP’s online platform, Scitation, already provides free access to full abstracts, index terms, and search capabilities for more than a million articles. Our journal prices are significantly lower than those for similar journals produced by commercial publishers, and we invest the modest return in outreach services such as lay-language translations of important research results, subsidized programs for students, and subsidized student and member-society subscriptions for Physics Today. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.