Paleonetters:
Here's a problem for discussion on PaleoNet: The crises in academic
publishing. It is a a very great threat to our profession of and
interest in paleontology. Many professionals are not aware of
this problem (on all the Univ. California campuses, only 40% of all
scholars knew of this problem). It is: the commercial
publishers have been increasing their costs to libraries greatly (over
200% in the past 6-7 years, while the Consumer Price Index (US) increased
only 68%). The commercial publishers take in a LOT of money
off of our writings, our reviewing, our intellects, and our editorial
services. So good is the business that Elsevier is a recommended
stock based on a captive market (i.e., a fixed number of consumers that
cost little to market to). Elsevier is the largest producer of
journals, but they are not alone in the pricing inflation. Even the
Ministers of 34 countries
(http://dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?CALLER=NHP_EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=EN_RCN_ID:21526)
and British MPs have criticized these trends and urged that something be
done about the high costs and open access (
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2004/07/20/cnsci20.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2004/07/20/ixcity.html
).
Here is a site that shows the costs of various commercial journals: http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/journals/ . A lot of information is available there. It shows also that the journals are being used, so we're facing a problem in this respect too. Here's a summary of journal costs in a few disciplines:
Journal pricing across disciplines
Price/Page Price/Cite
Field For-profit Non-profit For-profit Non-profit
Ecology
$1.19
$0.19
$0.73
$0.05
Economics
$0.81
$0.16
$2.33
$0.15
Atmos. Sci.
$0.95
$0.15
$0.88
$0.07
Mathematics
$0.70
$0.27
$1.32
$0.28
Neuroscience $0.89
$0.10
$0.23
$0.04
Physics
$0.63
$0.19
$0.38
$0.05
What does this mean for paleontology? The commercial publishers charge significantly more for paleontology journals than non-profits, but that is just part of the problem. More importantly, if your library has to pay $23,820/year for Nuclear Physics, $5,760/year for the Journal of Geophysical Research, $2,155 for Journal of Econonmetrics, Cement and Concrete Research = $2,147, Chemical Physics Letters = $11,750, etc, etc., etc., then libraries are going to have to make cuts. The most common way is to cut less used journals and books. Hence, paleontology journals with small use (most all at most campuses) will be cut.
You can see what the commercial publishers charge for many of their journals at this site:
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/journals/
An example:
Elsevier average title price as percentage of industry-wide average title price*
Agriculture
1,428%
Chemistry & Physics
194%
Engineering
435%
Mathematics, Botany, Geology, General Science
287%
Medicine
209%
Psychology
254%
All subjects
642%
* For 2002; calculated within disciplines; overall average based on 2003 Bowker Annual table entitled "U.S. Periodicals: Average Prices and Price Indexes"; Elsevier averages from list prices.
Elsevier is the dominant commercial publisher of STM journals. It has 23% of the market share and over a $1 billion in annual revenues. The next player is the American Chemical Society with 8% market share and $360 million in annual revenues. But many other publishers charge high costs as well.
The publishers may well have sound reasons to increase their product costs, but they are killing off some disciplines and some libraries, and, significantly, scholarship. The US National Institutes of Health has issued a policy that their PI's, who produce 60,000+ papers a year should make them available to the public free through an NIH service (
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html ).
Should paleontologists do anything about this problem as well? With a large number of interested people, paleontology should also be generally available to the public, much like NIH has declared. What could we do? This is not just about our journals but we only have control to some extent over those. Many universities and librarians make the following sorts of recommendations (paraphrased here):
1. Don't publish in those journals. In the past, commercial journals picked up the excess papers over society journals, published as many pages and plates as required, and did it relatively quickly. This was a service. Now, we can achieve the same things with electronic publications sponsored by societies. Page and plate limits are not a problem, speed of publication does not have to be a problem (post the papers as soon as they are accepted), and the costs are lower.
2. Don't review for those publishers. Your services are worth something, and they, not you, benefit.
3. Don't edit for them.
4. Don't cite papers in their journals.
5. Don't accept their copyright statements (it is your work, after all), if you must publish with them.
6. Support paleontological societies and other non-profits.
7. Publish in society or non-profit journals, and in on-line journals like Palaeontologica Electronica. If you are worried about the acceptance of on-line publications on your career, please note that the readership of PE is huge compared to most paleo journals. I can also direct you to statements on acceptance by deans, chairs, or whatever kind of boss you have of electronic publication.
As long as they are peer-reviewed, they will be accepted by most.
Any general thoughts on this issue? If you run an on-line journal, let us know. Any other ideas? Any stories out there about this problem in your institution? Check with your library to see how it deals with this problem. Several of us would be interested in the impact of this on paleontology in other states and countries.
There is a very large effort out there in general to deal with this problem--conferences, faculty proclamations, library negotiations, library refusals to subscribe, and others.
Useful web sites:
http://www.alpsp.org/default.htm
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/dils/lisu/index.html
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html
http://www.libecon.org/
http://www.plos.org/news/announce_cj.html
http://palaeo-electronica.org/toc.htm
Jere