,otr on Scholarly Journals' Premier Status Is Diluted by Web

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Weber <Weber () strategykinetics com>
Date: May 23, 2005 5:32:52 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Scholarly Journals' Premier Status Is Diluted by Web


Dave, for IP if you wish.

I agree with Steve Crocker that tenure and imprimatur issues are also  
important factors in the scholarly journal access debate.

In the 1990s I was a consultant to certain library associations and  
to scholarly publishers trying to cope with rapidly rising journal  
prices and the coming of the Internet as an alternative distribution  
medium. At that time, a number of additional factors were often cited  
by publishers as explanation, if not justification for higher  
subscription prices and/or maintaining paper-based publishing programs:

1. The "twigging of science." Publishers pointed out that not only  
had the amount of information being published globally was increasing  
at what seemed like near exponential rates, but all or nearly all  
disciplines were becoming more specialized and thus more narrow in  
scope. The new journals that were coming to market reflected this  
twigging of science. This had a couple of negative consequences.  
Finding smaller and smaller audiences for increasingly more  
specialized publications, publishers argued that rates had to go up  
in response to lower sales volume. Libraries were caught in the  
middle between smaller audiences and higher prices and the increase  
in the number of journals being published.

2. Publishers also pointed out that in many disciplines publications  
were increasingly relying on images that required color printing  
which also drove up costs. Specialized journals dealing with medicine  
and biology were frequently cited as examples.

3. Many scholarly associations maintain journal publishing programs  
both as a service to their constituencies and as revenue generators.  
The publications of the American Physical Society and the American  
Institute of Physics are a couple of examples, but examples existed  
in nearly every discipline. To make the journals electronic ran the  
risk of killing their revenue because of copyright violations such as  
pass-along.

4. Electronic publishing directly by the scholarly societies and  
commercial publishers was also seen as competing with online search  
companies who often had the exclusive (or non-exclusive) rights for  
search, article delivery on paper, and for local printing on paper.

Although I have not looked closely at this industry in the past  
several years, it would seem that many of these same points are made  
by scholarly publishers today.

Although many hold digital rights management in low regard, it may be  
the case that fee-based electronic publishing with digital rights  
management to address copyright issues might be helpful to all sides.  
One example of such a program is at the HarvardBusinessOnline at  
Harvard Business School Press is using digital rights management  
technologies from SealedMedia.com.

Best regards,

Bob Weber
Managing Director, Strategy Kinetics, LLC
50 Watertown Street, Ste 607
Watertown, MA 02472-2533
Voice: 617-308-3336  Fax: 617-812-0443
www.managingrights.com
www.strategykinetics.com



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/