Open-Access Scholarly Publishing

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Open-Access Scholarly Publishing

• Malcolm Getz
• Vanderbilt University
• June 1, 2004

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Two Questions

• Can open-access scholarship succeed?
• Should open-access scholarship succeed?
• The goals are to lower costs and increase access.

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Four Topics

• Three Fundamental Ideas
• Transition from Paper to Digital
• Market Forces
• Strategies

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Three Fundamental Ideas

• Substitutes versus Complements
• Recipient versus Sender Payment
• Packaging and Bundling

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From Paper to Digital

• Cost to Universities in 2002
• Library subscription fees, average 5,370,000
• Library processing and storage, perhaps
  1,110,000

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Annual Cost in 000s for a Research Library, 2002
Of 21,000 serials titles, let 10,000 be
refereed academic journals. Following
Bergstrom, put first copy costs at 1,840th,
distribution at 320th, and accounting at
240th. Let 2,400 of the journals be
high-priced commercial titles. Put profit at
1,290th.
Item Print
First Copy 1,840
Distribution 320
Accounting 240
Profit 1,290
Other Serials 1,680
Publication Total 5,370
A Research Librarys Expenditures on Serials
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Annual Cost in 000s for a Research Library
Item Print
First Copy 1,840
Distribution 320
Accounting 240
Profit 1,290
Other Serials 1,680
Lib Processing 790
Lib Storage 320
Total 6,480
Publication Plus Library Costs
Add 37 per serial title for library
processing. Put the present value of perpetual
storage of the current year of each serial at
15.
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Compare print to digital

• Replace print subscriptions with digital
  subscriptions.
• Digital subscriptions that replace print
  subscriptions lower the publishers distribution
  costs by 300,000.
• Digital subscriptions lower library storage costs
  by 150,000.

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Annual Cost in 000s for a Research Library
Print to Digital
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Digital Subscription to Open-Access
Open-access means that authors pay page charges
to journals that are available without charge on
the Internet.

• Lower accounting costs because transactions are
  with authors rather than with readers.
• Lower library processing cost with universal free
  access on the Internet.

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Annual Cost in 000s for a Research Library
Item Print Digital Open difference
First Copy 1,840 1,840 1,840 0
Distribution 320 20 20 0
Accounting 240 240 12 228
Profit 1,290 1,290 1,290 0
Other Serials 1,680 1,680 1,680 0
Lib Processing 790 790 420 370
Lib Storage 320 170 170 0
Total 6,480 6,030 5,432 598
Digital to Open-access
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Profit to Non-Profit

• Organize the open-access publications exclusively
  through non-profit publishers.
• Eliminate excess profit of high-priced commercial
  academic journals.

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Annual Cost in 000s for a Research Library
Open-access to Non-profit
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Potential Cost Savings
Annual Savings in 000s per Research Library

• Significant savings are possible by replacing
  print with digital, moving to open-access, and
  moving to non-profit organization.
• None of these savings is automatic.

Distribution 300
Storage 150
Accounting 228
Processing 360
Profit 1,290
Total 2,328
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Citation Rates

• Open-access will allow anyone on the Internet to
  search full-text databases and retrieve page
  images for any purpose without charge.
• Use of Medline increased seven fold after it
  became open-access. Some 30 percent of use is by
  people who are not health care providers.
• With more adults having BAs and more, use of
  scholarship might increase.

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Market Forces

• With large scale, publishers achieve market
  power, the ability to charge by ability-to-pay
  rather than cost.
• Elseviers Market Intelligence Manager looks for
  ways for libraries to lower operating costs so as
  to pay Elsevier more.
• Open-access could be offered by commercial
  publishers.

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Amount of Publication Fee
The publication fees needed to support
high-quality editing are substantial.

• American Economic Review 13,000 per article
• Bergstrom estimate of average 1,820 per article
• Public Library of Science 1,500 per
  article

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Strategies

• Assure quality of editing of open-access
  journals.
• Tie size of publication fee to citation rate.
• Limit publication fees to not-for-profit
  publishers.
• Grow open access journals as ancillaries to
  indices.

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Two Conclusions

• Can open-access scholarship succeed?
• Yes. Innovators can gain advantages.
• Should open-access scholarship succeed?
• Yes. It should offer wider access at lower
  cost.

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Open-Access Scholarly Publishing

Malcolm.Getz_at_Vanderbilt.Edu