I think that ASCB should not be used as an example. Their
subscription data mixes those provided to members as
personal
subscription with those provided to institutions.
The ASCB has had significant increases in membership
resulting in
their claiming to have over 11,000 subscribers. I would be
interested in seeing data specifically for institutional
subscriptions. It should also be noted that MBC is a fairly
new
journal, with a high impact factor, likely to see an
increase in
institutional subscription as institutions respond to the
requests of their faculty. It would be nice to see what
happened
to institutional subscriptions before we make MBC the poster
child for OA. Unfortunately, in the past, ASCB has refused
to
share that information.
Martin Frank, Ph.D.
Executive Director, American Physiological Society
email: mfrank the-aps.org
APS Website: http://www.the-aps.org
...integrating the life sciences from molecule to organism
----------Original Message----------
From: "David Prosser" <david.prosserbodley.ox.ac.uk>
Sent: Thu, April 26, 2007 8:33 PM
To: <liblicense-llists.yale.edu>
Subject: RE: Summary paper from the Publishing Research
Consortium
Sally, Not really the most compelling of examples (in my
opinion,
of course).
SM - 'British Medical Journal - when all content was free on
BMJ
site, print subs (and ads) fell dramatically. Now that only
research articles are free, revenue has almost recovered.'
This proves that varying the length of embargo on primary
research articles had no effect on the subscription and ad
revenue for the BMJ. Open access advocates are only
interested
in research articles and so the BMJ has proved (for at least
one
type of journal) you can make all of the primary literature
freely available on publication with no negative effects.
SM - 'Molecular Biology of the Cell - in the 3 years
following
introduction of free access after 2 month embargo, average
annual
subscription growth fell from (spectacular!) 84% to 8%'
We can trade statistics ad nauseam, but let me give you a
cited
quote from the American Society of Cell Biology, publishers
of
Molecular Biology of the Cell
(http://www.
ascb.org/files/ascboadraft.pdf):
'The ASCB was the first publisher to participate in the
NIH's
PubMed Central by releasing its high-impact monthly research
journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell, for free public
access
two months after publication. The Society is confident in
its
claim that the proposed NIH policy will not adversely affect
the
subscription income of otherwise successful journals based
on its
own experience with MBC. In fact implementation of this
aggressive release schedule for MBC coincided with an
increase in
number of subscriptions of 16% in the year following
implementation compared to the year prior, and an increase
of 14%
in submissions to the journal comparing the same time
periods.'
(My speculation here, for what it's worth, is that any
journal is
going to see a fall in the rate of increase of subscriptions
10
years or so after launch. The general pattern is that
following
launch journals see subscriptions increase over time, reach
a
maximum, and then start to decline. The effect of reducing
the
embargo to two months may well have slowed this decrease,
not
caused it as Sally implies!)
SM - 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Science - free
access after 1 month embargo in 2000 led to 11% fall in
subscriptions in 2001; extending the embargo to 6 months
reduced
this to 9% in 2002.'
A 2% difference is probably not statistically significant
and it
is certainly not the catastrophic decrease that the Beckett
and
Inger study predicts - remember they predict a 50% fall in
subscriptions with a 24 month embargo!
This conversation started because I suggested that the
practice
of publishers making papers freely available after an
embargo
period gave us a chance to test the Beckett and Inger model
for
cancellations. All the evidence we have so far shows that
Beckett and Inger's model does not accurately predict
library
behaviour when faced with the free availability of content
following embargos.
David C Prosser PhD
Director
SPARC Europe
http://www.sparceurope.org
-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-llists.yale.edu] On Behalf
Of Sally Morris (Morris
Associates)
Sent: 26 April 2007 02:29
To: liblicense-llists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Summary paper from the Publishing Research
Consortium
Apologies for picking this up so late
There are, in fact, tangible examples where publishers have
experienced serious consequences from offering too short an
embargo
British Medical Journal - when all content was free on BMJ
site,
print subs (and ads) fell dramatically. Now that only
research
articles are free, revenue has almost recovered
Molecular Biology of the Cell - in the 3 years following
introduction of free access after 2 month embargo, average
annual
subscription growth fell from (spectacular!) 84% to 8%
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science - free
access
after 1 month embargo in 2000 led to 11% fall in
subscriptions in
2001; extending the embargo to 6 months reduced this to 9%
in
2002
Sally Morris
Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
Email: sallymorris-assocs.demon.co.uk
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