LIBR 559L Scholarly Communications Commercial Scholarly Publishing in an Age of Transition Martin Rose June 14 th, 2011

Where are we now? A “Serials Crisis” Academic library budgets are shrinking Journal subscription prices keep rising Four largest corporations – Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and Taylor & Francis – dominate the market Libraries locked into “Big Deals” for 3 to 5 years (Morrision, 2009) and (Masterton, 2006)

Role of Bibliometrics Bradford's Law 1930's Eugene Garfield (Institute for Scientific Information) SCI (Science Citation Index) 1950's Peer Review (King makers) (Guédon, 2001)

What about Open Access? The current worldwide system of Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) publishing has evolved over hundreds of years, and we believe it serves science and medical communities well. Open Access’ author-pays model risks penalising the countries that produce the highest number of articles. The Open Access business model in its current form has not proven its financial viability. (Elsevier, 2004)

Room for Negotiation In 2008 Total revenue from STM journal publishing was $8 billion. Forcasts predict a 3.7% increase per year so that revenues should be around $13 billion in 2013 (Ware, 2009) and (Strempel, 2010) In 2009 Elsevier’s operating profit margin was 34.9% John Wiley & Sons reported 41% of the revenue in its STMS division as a direct contribution to profit (Strempel, 2010)

...and this was a year when the industry experienced about 2% negative growth in revenues (image: Google Finance Canada

A Pragmatic Approach “While a compelling and legitimate case can be made for restructuring the economics of scholarly publishing... such a reformation frames the change in terms of philosophical principles and political imperatives. Income models, however, are indifferent business mechanisms. Their market implications are driven by the financial and mission motivations of the individual publishers that implement them, not by the intrinsic nature of the model itself.” Raym Crow – SPARC Senior Consultant (Crow, 2009)

More than just money... Top four largest publishers account for about 7000 journal titles. Nearly 19,000 employees (not all working with journals) All four have a global presence with offices all over the world including China, Southeast Asia and South America All are also investing heavily in enhancing the online experience for researchers.

Elsevier saw over 65% of its journal impact factors increase from 2008 to 2009 Elsevier journals took the #1 position in 57 of 230 categories (up from 51 of 229 the prior year) across all of the sciences and social sciences (Strempel, 2010)

They have over 1000 titles that achieved an impact factor rating and nearly 25% of those are in the top 10 of their subject category. 36 titles achieved a number one ranking according to Thomson ISI 2009 Journal Citation Reports. (Strempel, 2010)

PEER  Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER)  Mandate is to research the effects of final peer reviewed manuscripts being deposited in OA Institutional Repositories  Program is funded by the EU (major funder for European research)  Actively supported by several well known publishers including Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell and Taylor & Francis Source:

Are Attitudes Changing? “Wiley Open Access” launching in Elsevier has allowed authors to self archive in their open access institutional repository since July Taylor & Francis offer a “Gold” OA scheme for 320 of their journals. Springer also offer a group of journals that offer “Gold” OA under the name “SpringerOpen”

References Crow, R. (2009). Income models for open access: An overview of current practice. Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition. Retrieved on 27 th May, 2011 from Elsevier comments on possible implications of Open Access journals for the U.K. (2004, 17 th February). Elesvier.com. Retrieved 13 th June, 2011 from Guédon, J. (2001). In Oldenburg's Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing. Washington, D.C: Association of Research Libraries. Masterson, M. and Strempel, D., (2006). Open access: Market challenges and opportunities. Stamford, CT: Simba Information. Morrison, H. (2009). Scholarly communication for librarians. Chandos information professional series. Chandos Pub. Reed Elsevier (2010) Description of business. Retrieved 13 th June, 2011 from Strempel, D. and Kilkelly, S., ed. (2010). Global professional publishing report Stamford, CT: Simba Information. Wallace, J. and Armbruster, C. (2010) Annual Report – Year 2. Publishing and the Ecology of European Research (PEER). Retrieved 13 th June, 2011 from Ware, M. and Mabe, M. (2009). The STM report: An overview of scientific and scholarly publishing. Oxford: International Assocation of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers.