Terry,
Although no-one knows why there haven't been cancellations in physics yet, a
snip from a response we posted in November of Harnad's original critique of
the paper by maybe holds some part of the answer:
"4. The critique states that some of the findings are obvious and banal.
"The fact that everyone would like something for free rather than paying for
it", for example. In fact the survey shows that not everyone would prefer
that. Even in a completely like for like situation. Possibly because people
are suspicious of free things. Much more important, however, is how the
decision becomes qualified by other factors - *and to what extent* they are
qualified. [....] Look closely and the results show that the lure of "free"
has only
so much pulling power, and a combination of other factors pull more potently
against it. So in themselves the importance of each of the attributes has
limited value - it is in combination that their true meaning comes through."
In addition, of course, the content on ArXiv is not entirely (by a long way)
the peer-reviewed version of the articles, something that our work showed to
be a very strong negative for the cancellation-minded.
Simon.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group [mailto:LIS-E-
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bucknell, Terry
> Sent: 20 March 2007 11:24
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium
>
> John et al,
>
> I agree with your assumptions about the roles of arXiv, journals and
> Inspec in the research needs of (particle) physicists and related
> disciplines - I used to be a physicist myself! This is borne out by our
> usage statistics: our usage of our current Physical Review subscriptions
> is quite low, but our usage of the Physical Review Online Archive
> (PROLA) is very impressive.
>
> The fact remains that our academics review their subscriptions annually
> but they have not asked us to cancel the journals that are largely
> reproduced in arXiv.
>
> Note, I'm not saying we know why they don't want to cancel these
> journals. I'm just stating the facts (here, as we see them)!
>
>
> Terry Bucknell
> Electronic Resources Manager
> Sydney Jones Library
> University of Liverpool
> Chatham St, PO Box 123
> Liverpool, L69 3DA, UK
> Tel: +44 (0)151 794 2692
> Fax: +44 (0)151 794 2681
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Smith
> Sent: 20 March 2007 11:12
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium
>
> Terry,
>
> How many of your physicists actually get the information they use
> day-to-day for research from these journals? I suspect they get the
> latest information needed for their work either from ArXiv or directly
> from colleagues. If they really can wait until the journal articles are
> published they are not really at the forefront of their subject. Over 20
> years ago physicists (and researchers in related subjects) had the most
> advanced preprints distribution system with an index at CERN, I doubt if
> they have slipped backwards in this regard.
>
> I recently interviewed a young post-doc researcher in our Computer
> Science department regarding his information gathering techniques. For
> him journals were just background reading when he had time or places to
> publish mature research (to get the kudos) which had already been
> published online or in conference reports. He never used INSPEC but
> instead preferred Google Scholar and CiteSeer.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Smith,
> The Templeman Library,
> University of Kent, UK.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bucknell, Terry
> Sent: 19 March 2007 16:17
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium
>
> <TEXT DELETED>
>
> As a research-led institution, access to the latest issues is
> imperative. Embargoed Open Access (or embargoed content in an aggregated
> subscription product) is no substitute for a subscription to a journal
> that is required for research purposes. Embargoed access is only
> acceptable for journals that we only envisage being used for student
> coursework, student project work etc (i.e.nice to have but not
> essential).
>
> I am not aware of any subscriptions here that have been cancelled
> because embargoed Open Access is available. The report questions why
> more of us haven't cancelled more physics subscriptions despite the high
> availability of articles in arXiv. In our case it is because the
> academics have not chosen to do so. They appear to prefer to spend their
> library budget on the key physics journals, even if much of the content
> is already available in arXiv, than to spend their budget on 'second
> string' physics journals instead.
>
>
> Terry Bucknell
> Electronic Resources Manager
> Sydney Jones Library
> University of Liverpool
> Chatham St, PO Box 123
> Liverpool, L69 3DA, UK
> Tel: +44 (0)151 794 2692
> Fax: +44 (0)151 794 2681
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Prosser
> Sent: 19 March 2007 15:24
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium
>
> The Beckett and Inger paper 'Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions:
> Co-existence or Competition?' gives us a hypothesis (p. 11 of the
> summary
> paper):
>
>
>
> 'In the extreme case of 100% availability of content on the
> institutional archives and a 24-month embargo, still nearly half the
> market for subscription journals has disappeared.'
>
>
>
> So, if 100% of the journal's content is freely available the journal
> will, all other factors being equal, lose a massive proportion of its
> subscription base. Decreasing the embargo to zero increases the
> predicted fall in the market from 50% to approximately 70%.
>
>
>
> Can we test this hypothesis? If we look at journals hosted by HighWire
> Press we can see that a large number make papers freely available after
> 6, 12, or 24 months (see
> http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl). For these journals,
> the final versions of papers are made available to all. If the
> prediction made by Beckett and Inger was true then these journals should
> have started to haemorrhaging subscriptions following the opening-up of
> the archives. Is there any evidence that they have?
>
>
>
> Back in 2005, John Sack wrote, in a history of HighWire Press
> (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/alpsp/lp/2005/00000018/00000002/a
> rt00
> 008):
>
>
>
> After several years of content was online, Nick Cozzarelli (PNAS), Bob
> Simoni (JBC) and Michael Held (Rockefeller University Press) presented a
> concept of 'free back issues' to their colleague HighWire publishers.
> Their view was that librarians and researchers were subscribing because
> they needed access to absolutely current issues, and that there was
> significant educational benefit in issues that were months old. They
> proposed that back issues (6 or 12 months old) be made freely available
> to the public to support educational uses, and expected that this would
> have no significant effect on subscription count. Gradually more and
> more journals came to this same belief, and today the programme
> comprises the largest archive of free full-text research articles that
> we know of: over 825,000 articles from about 220 journals.
>
>
>
> (Emphasis added). There does not appear to be a mass retreat from the
> free back file programme - are publisher sanguine in the face of 50%
> declines in their subscription base?
>
>
>
> Of course, most of the HighWire hosted journals offering free backfiles
> are in the biological and medical fields, but as the summary does not
> break-down the response of librarians by subject area, it is difficult
> to tell what predictions are being made in these fields.
>
>
>
> So, we have a hypothesis and we have some test-cases. If the
> HighWire-hosted journals are managing to survive despite the predicted
> massive falls in subscriptions they should have experience, why should
> we take the Beckett and Inger study as a credible warning of what might
> happen as self-archiving become more widespread?
>
>
>
> David
>
>
>
> David C Prosser PhD
>
> Director
>
> SPARC Europe
>
>
>
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> Tel: +44 (0) 1865 277 614
>
> Mobile: +44 (0) 7974 673 888
>
> http://www.sparceurope.org
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sally Morris
> Sent: 19 March 2007 12:43
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Summary paper from the Publishing Research Consortium
>
>
>
> To help the scholarly community better understand and evaluate how open
>
> archiving might impact journal subscriptions, the Publishing Research
>
> Consortium has released the summary paper 'Self-Archiving and Journal
>
> Subscriptions: Co-existence or Competition?'.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> This paper is a condensed version of the earlier analysis released in
>
> November 2006. It looks at librarian purchasing preferences, and
> concludes
>
> that mandating self-archiving within six months or less of publication
> will
>
> undermine the subscription-based peer review journal. The summary
> paper,
>
> together with the original report, is freely available at
>
> http://www.publishingresearch.org.uk/.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sally Morris
>
>
>
> on behalf of the Publishing Research Consortium
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Website: www.publishingresearch.org.uk
>
>
>
>
>
>
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