Nick Hasell, Reed Elsevier, Wm Morrison, BAA, Exel, BOC Group, Times Online, July 3, 2004. Excerpt: "Reed Elsevier retreated further from last month's 12-month high as the spectre of 'open access' scientific publishing returned to weigh on the shares. Under this model, pioneered by US academic journals, content is provided free to the user and funded by the author, who is usually sponsored. This is a direct inversion of the traditional relationship, whereby an author contributes their research freely, with users paying for the content through subscriptions. But the tide appeared to be turning in favour of 'open access' after Springer, the German group, the world's second-largest academic publisher behind Reed, said it plans to offer scientific research through the model. Springer said it expects 10 per cent of publications to shift to open access, against the 1 per cent of articles that are currently offered through such platforms. Reed has previously said it expects that penetration to be limited to 4 to 5 per cent. Analysts suggested Reed may now be forced to follow Springer's more aggressive stance, possibly threatening the long-term growth of its scientific and medical division, which accounts for 29 per cent of revenues by 40 per cent of earnings. With the EU also looking at the prices charged by academic publishers, and a House of Commons report on scientific publishing due within weeks, Reed shed 6 1/2 p at 523p."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/02/2004 08:52:00 PM.
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.
