The Public Library of Science (PLoS), the flagship publisher for the open-access publishing movement, faces a looming financial crisis. An analysis of the company's accounts, obtained by Nature, shows that the company falls far short of its stated goal of quickly breaking even. In an attempt to redress its finances, PLoS will next month hike the charge for publishing in its journals from US$1,500 per article to as much as $2,500....
As a US non-profit charity, PLoS must file its annual accounts to the Internal Revenue Service. Nature consulted these via GuideStar.org, a database that contains information on 1.5 million US non-profit organizations. The figures show that PLoS lost almost $1 million last year. Moreover, its total income from fees and advertising currently covers just 35% of its total costs. And although this income is increasing - from $0.75 million in 2003-04 to $0.9 million in 2004-05 - it lags far behind spending, which has soared from $1.5 million to around $5.5 million over the past three years....[Grants from the Moore Foundation and Sandler Family Supporting Foundation] covered 65% of the company's operating costs last year....
"We will continue to rely on philanthropic grant support for the foreseeable future," says Mark Patterson, director of publishing at PLoS's UK office in Cambridge, and "possibly always". Patterson adds that he is hopeful that the Sandler Foundation will provide more grants....
"This demonstrates once again the fragility of the author-pays model," says David Worlock, chairman of the London-based publishing consultancy Electronic Publishing Services. (Worlock has worked with a number of publishing companies including Nature Publishing Group.) "It's a real giveaway if they are now saying that they will always need some philanthropic funding." But Patterson points out that PLoS launched most of its journals recently, and that income from these publications is only beginning to accrue. "The financial situation for this year will look quite different," he says. "I'm confident we can balance the books this year and next."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/20/2006 05:22:00 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.
