Crooked Timber: Academic publishing and monopoly pricing

(Forwarded from NY Fair Use Discussion list)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [fairuse-talk] Crooked Timber: Academic publishing and monopoly
pricing  (fwd)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 04:01:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Sulzberger <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Cosima Shalizi page:

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/archives/000161.html

oo--JS.


 ---------- Forwarded message ----------
 Subject: Crooked Timber: Academic publishing and monopoly pricing
 X-URL: http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001157.html


 January 16, 2004

 Academic publishing and monopoly pricing

    Posted by Henry

    Via Cosma Shalizi, a very nice article on the economics of academic
publishing in
    the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors provide
    compelling empirical evidence of a large differential between the price
of
    commercial journals and the price of journals put out by professional
societies
    and academic presses, which isn't explained by journal quality. The
graphs almost
    jump from the page - there are dramatically different relationships
between price
    and number of citations, depending on whether you are looking at
commercial or
    non-commercial journals. Furthermore, according to the authors, the
differential
    between the two has increased over time. Commercial journals are lousy
value for
    money - but they're apparently hard to displace in the marketplace.

    The authors' wider argument is also interesting - and worrying.
Increasingly,
    academic publishing is moving towards a model based on the licensing of
    electronic access to a bundle of journals to universities and other
research
    institutions. The authors' model suggests that site licensing of
journals by
    commercial publishers will leave scholars worse off on average than if
each
    scholar purchased individual licenses to the journals that she wanted to
read.
    While site licences to larger groups are more efficient, these
efficiency gains
    are more than absorbed by the sellers, if the sellers are profit
maximizing
    firms.

    Economists who are interested in new economy issues, like Brad DeLong,
usually
    focus on the massive productivity gains that we can expect from
information
    technology. While these are important, so too are the distributional
consequences
    - the ways in which new technologies affect who gets what. Even if new
    technologies, such as electronic publishing, are more efficient in some
broad
    sense of the term, the efficiency gains may be distributed in ways that
are
    difficult to justify.
    Posted on January 16, 2004 10:21 PM UTC
    Comments

    An alternative model is provided by the Journal of Biology. As the
article notes,
    the journal grew from the open letter on open publishing published by
the Public
    Library of Science.

    In some cases, commercial journals charge at both ends - for publication
and for
    subscription. And, of course, they retain exclusive publication
rights[1]. Given
    all this, there is a question mark over whether they provide value for
money, and
    whether academics might be able to do a more efficient job themselves -
in every
    sense - by cutting out the middleman.

    And if there is no profit motive involved, there is no need to keep
copyright
    restrictions on papers after sufficient time has elapsed to recoup the
costs of
    publishing. Indeed, you can even make some papers free straight away.

    Free really might be cheaper in this context, after all.

    [1] In theory - there is evidently a variable amount of leeway in terms
of
    posting a paper on your homepage in the Internet age.
    Posted by robin green · January 17, 2004 12:10 AM
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