Investec is the latest financial analyst to join PNB Paribas and Citigroup Smith Barney in thinking that competition from open-access journals raises concerns for investors in commercial journal publishers.
Quoting from its December 4 report on Reed Elsevier: "Growing support for 'open access' journals, moves by some high profile university libraries to un-bundle their Elsevier journal subscription packages and other developments in the STM publishing market suggest that what has historically been a very predictable (albeit controversial) business may be facing significant changes in coming years."
Quoting from its December 12 report on Taylor & Francis: "The open access debate is gaining prominence, with BioMed Central and Public Library of Science getting considerable press coverage at the moment. Today the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has announced that it will be investigating the STM market and open access....We have today moved to a HOLD recommendation to reflect the impact that the increasingly vocal debate on Open Access will have on market sentiment towards the stock."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/20/2003 11:11:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
