Geography Professor, Nick Blomley, wrote an editorial called "Is this Journal Worth US$1118?" in Geoforum, an Elsevier journal. Blomley presented data comparing prices and citations for a number of geography journals. Blomley's article inspired an Elsevier spokesperson, Chris Pringle, to write a rejoinder titled "Price and Value: A Publisher's Perspective", an essay that will appeal to connoisseurs of Weaselsprache the world over. Mr. Pringle explains that "the cost per download has declined fivefold between 1999 and 2005". You have to give the man credit for finding something that grew more than five times as fast as Elsevier prices over this period. Article downloads will do it. The days when we used to walk over to the library to read journals are not so far behind us.
Of course we are still left wondering why it is that Elsevier journals cost about four times as much per article as non-profit journals, (whose downloads must also be growing about five times as fast as Elsevier prices. ) Mr. Pringle has an answer for that one too. "Some journals rely solely on a limited number of subscriptions whereas others benefit from additional revenue sources as well as subsidies and tax breaks." I suppose that he means that Elsevier journals have fewer subscribers than the cheaper non-profit journals. (What do you suppose could be the reason for that? Reminds me of Lizzie Borden pleading for leniency on the grounds that she was an orphan.) As to subsidies: most professional societies do not subsidize their journals, but collect a substantial surplus from journal operations which they use to sponsor societal activities. Nevertheless they manage to make do with prices that are about a fourth of Elsevier prices. Maybe its the tax breaks, eh?
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/16/2006 05:38:00 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.
