The Cost of Knowledge -- In 2003?

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-08-20

Summary:

“My former supervisor (in 1993!) Göran Englund may not be a Field's Medalist (he's an ecologist!), but already in 2003, he saw corporate publishers behaving in the same way which gave rise to the Elsevier boycott this year, almost ten years later: extorting university libraries with overpriced journals. Back then, he calculated a ‘blacklist’ of journals, ranked by subscription price per article in his field of ecology. Interestingly, the bottom of this list is populated by the high-ranking society and non-profit journals, while the expensive spots are occupied by the lower-ranking, overpriced journals of corporate publishers. Unfortunately, he never published his analysis, but after a phone-conversation initiated for an entirely different reason today, he sent me his blacklist. Here's what he said about it nine years ago: ‘The crisis in academic publishing ... [1] The market is dysfunctional – there is no mechanism regulating journal prices. [2] Prices of commercially published journals often increase by 10-20% per year [3] In ecology the average prices of commercially published journals are four times higher than those published by non-profit organizations. [4] Libraries cancel subscriptions – Our research is not efficiently disseminated. [5] We pay more and get less...  What can be done? [1] Examine the pricing policy of any commercially published journal before you contribute as an author, reviewer, or editor. If possible, refuse to do business with publishers who practice ‘predatory pricing.’ [2] Submit papers to journals that have reasonable prices. [3] As a member of a scholarly association, encourage the creation of competitors to expensive commercial journals. [4] Inform your colleagues.’ It almost goes without saying: after 2003, Göran never published, reviewed or edited for any of the commercial journals any more.” [Use the link above to view two graphs provided in the blog post which are part of the original document created by Goran Englund showing the relationship between price per article and impact factor as well as a comparison of publisher’s business models and prices per article. In addition, a link has been provided to the pdf listing journals from commercial publishers ranked by price per article and including their impact factor at that time.]

Link:

http://bjoern.brembs.net/news.php?item.848.11

Updated:

08/16/2012, 06:08

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.business_models oa.publishers oa.policies oa.comment oa.advocacy oa.signatures oa.petitions oa.boycotts oa.elsevier oa.societies oa.libraries oa.access oa.prices oa.jif oa.ecology oa.metrics

Authors:

abernard

Date tagged:

08/20/2012, 18:39

Date published:

03/30/2012, 20:12