A comparison should include all disciplines, as there are journals even more expensive than those in economics.
Here are a few preliminary numbers, using publically available data from WebofScience and the ARL statistics. (Note that because of a variety of factors these are very rough approximations). In particular, Only journals covered by Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index are included, as the coverage of Humanities Citation Index is too spotty-- and those journals much less expensive. For 2001, the latest year available. [University; number of peer-reviewed articles published; what it would cost at $1500 per article; the current serials budget (subscription/license)]: University articles publ. cost at $1500 serials budget Cornell 4848 $7.3 million $5.6 million Dartmouth 1492 $2.2 million $3.2 million Princeton 3132 $4.7 million $4.7 million Yale 4463 $6.7 million $6.4 million Thus, it would seem that the costs of the new scheme for ARL institutions are about the same as the present (I am aware of the many factors to be considered in a more exact comparison). It is presumably the hope of those of us engaged in the various aspects of the movement for alternatives to conventional journals to reduce costs, not merely redistribute them. Thus it would seem that the proposal under discussion has either grossly overestimated the expense of its scheme, or is too expensive to be worth considering. The BioMedCentral price is $500 an article. If it proves to be possible to operate the scheme at such a price level, then it might well offer significant cost savings. Dr. David Goodman Princeton University Library and Palmer School of Library and Information Science [email protected]
