Arthur,

I felt that Sally's note was quite reasonable and certainly did not merit 
your rather scathing reply.

You claim she has no evidence for her viewpoint but she is the head of an 
organisation that represents learned and professional publishers so I for 
one am prepared to give weight to what she writes. What evidence do you 
have that makes you so sure she is wrong?

You claim at one point that she "enter[s] the realm of rhetoric" but you 
then go on to speculate about what might be the cause of her observations 
without presenting any evidence to support your speculation.

Regards,

John Smith,
University of Kent, UK.


On Sat, 21 Oct 2006, Arthur Sale wrote:

> Sally
>
>
>
> Let's deconstruct your reply then if you think I didn't take aim accurately
> enough. I hope this is accurate enough for you.
>
>
>
> Arthur
>
>
>
>  _____
>
> From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Sally Morris (Chief Executive)
> Sent: Friday, 20 October 2006 3:06 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Harnad model
>
>
>
> Two comments:
>
>
>
> 1)    I think books are probably different.  If you want all of a book, then
> printing it out (single sided, unbound) is not a good way to have it - you
> may well decide to buy the print version.
>
> I agree, books are different from scholarly journals. Always have been.
>
> A journal article, however, of only a few pages is no great problem to
> print out for yourself from a free online version.
>
> I agree, though you don't always want to print it unless you are a paper
> waster. I for one usually keep copies of interesting papers electronically
> (or as URLs) rather than in paper. They are easier to find later. I wouldn't
> (so far) read an online book on the screen.
>
> Free online versions might not, however, drive sales for all types of books
> - I, for one, would not be sanguine about the consequences for a dictionary,
> encyclopedia or recipe book.
>
> Are you not aware that print encyclopedias have gone the way of the mammoth
> and the dodo? The first half of this sentence in unexceptionable however,
> but none of this point is relevant to answering Erik apart from the rather
> obvious statement that books are different from scholarly articles, and
> books are not a mono-typical category. You cite three categories of books
> not designed to be read (front-to-back), but there are many other
> categories: novels, scholarly works, textbooks, instruction manuals,
> telephone books, etc. However, had you stopped at this point, I would have
> not have bothered to respond.
>
>
>
> 2)     It is not the experience of publishers in the west, I think, that
> free online journals drive up print sales.
>
> As I said, if by 'the west' you mean developed countries, then I've
> certainly heard no-one make this claim. Even Erik says "it remains to be
> seen".
>
> Many have started by making the online version free to all;  then free but
> only to print subscribers;  then available on subscription, either
> separately or bundled with print, as the customer prefers.  Why have then
> gone through this sequence?
>
> Now we enter the realm of rhetoric. This process is surely well understood,
> and by yourself as well.
>
> Certainly, in my experience, it's because free online access was increasing
> the decline in print subscriptions.
>
> If that is your experience, I am amazed, because no evidence has ever been
> presented to this effect, by yourself or anyone else. Would you please give
> the evidence in public? What is more likely to have happened is that in the
> first transition publishers feared that 'free online access was increasing
> the decline in print subscriptions' and took steps to eliminate free online
> access to their journals. At the time this transition usually occurred,
> online access was in its infancy and there would have been very few online
> readers. Yet journal cancellations have continued even after this transition
> was complete. To what do you attribute this? The second transition was
> certainly not driven by 'free online access' because that had gone, but
> rather driven by the preference of subscribers for the online version, and
> their increasing distaste for wasting cataloguing services and shelf space
> on duplicate paper versions. One can expect this trend to accelerate, and
> bundling is again a reactionary publisher response to user behavioral
> change.
>
> Perhaps other publishers with experience of the pricing model transition
> could comment on their experience?
>
> This whole paragraph is either rhetoric (for an effect) or sloppy thinking.
> Only you know which. It contributes nothing to the comment on Erik's post
> and makes several statements which are plainly wrong. I expect more honesty
> from publishers. The world of scholarly journal publishing is changing
> because the end-users of scholarly journals are changing their work
> practices as a consequence of the availability of the Internet and PCs.
>
>
>
> Arthur
>
>
>
>
>
> Sally
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sally Morris, Chief Executive
> Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
> South House, The Street, Clapham
> Worthing, West Sussex, BN13 3UU, UK
>
>
>
> Tel:  +44 (0) 1903 871 686
> Fax:  +44 (0) 8700 511 929
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Website:  www.alpsp.org
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: Erik Moore <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 2:55 PM
>
> Subject: Re: Harnad model
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> this parasitism will ultimately destroy the current journal model (who is
> going subscribe to a journal when all its articles are available for free?).
>
>
>
> This remains to be seen, and the same question has been asked of other
> models (technical reports, monographs) where free offerings have been
> beneficial, not parasitic. In the USA, the National Academies Press
> <http://www.nap.edu/> <http://www.nap.edu/> allows free online viewing of
> all content they publish (3000+ books); they have added download
> availability by chapter and whole work--some (hundreds) for a fee and some
> (hundreds) for free. Michael Jensen, Director of Publishing Technologies at
> that press, has made frequent mention that free offerings have helped,
> rather than hindered, their sales.
>
> Daniel Cohen's and Roy Rosenzweig's book Digital History has been a top
> seller at U. Penn press, with sales apparently undiluted (and in fact,
> probably aided) by being freely available online
> <http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/> <http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/>.
>
>
> I realize the apples:oranges problem in making a comparison between the
> above and the deposit of OA scientific pre-/postprints. I just use those
> examples to point out that there have been other concerns (for publishers)
> in the past as to the viability of paid/free hybrid models. The same editor
> who brought out Digital History (a good friend of mine) was quite worried,
> six or seven years ago, that he might be hearing the electronic death knell
> for his job. He has long since become more comfortable with emerging models.
>
> Regards,
> --Erik Moore
>
>
>
>
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> Erik Moore
> Librarian for the Integrated Library System
> North Carolina State University Libraries
> Campus Box 7111
> Raleigh, NC 27695-7111
> (919)515-9562           FAX (919)513-3330
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]>
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
> For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
>