[GOAL] Re: Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I’d have to say yes
Gary, Not wanting to defend high price increases I do think that you should take into account the number of papers published in the average journal in the various fields and how this number develops over time. The typical humanities journal may have 4-6 issues with 4-8 papers, so 16-48 papers per annum whereas the typical chemistry journal may have 8-12 issues with 24-48 papers resulting in 192-572 papers per annum. This partly explaines the big interfield journal cost variety. I suspect that the pressure to publish and sheer growth of the number of researchers has caused these numbers to rise over the past few years, also in humanities. That also partly explaines the rising journal costs. So take a per article view. Or academics should decide to write less and read and think more ;-) Jeroen Bosman Utrecht University Library -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Omega Alpha | Open Access Sent: woensdag 25 juni 2014 17:58 To: goal@eprints.org; sparc-oafo...@arl.org Subject: [GOAL] Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I’d have to say yes Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I’d have to say yes http://wp.me/p20y83-X4 The other day, over on Library Journal’s website, Dorothea Salo published a short piece entitled “Is There a Serials Crisis Yet? Between Chicken Little and the Grasshopper,” which, as it happens, I read the evening after participating on a panel presentation at the American Theological Library Association’s annual conference in New Orleans. The panel was entitled “Open Access: Responding to a Looming ‘Serials Crisis’ in Theological and Religious Studies.” My role on the panel was to place the case for open access within a context that suggested unsustainable journal pricing was no longer limited to disciplines in the Sciences. Although Humanities journals, including those in Theological and Religious Studies, are still typically priced at a fraction of Science journals, I provided evidence that rapid increases in prices over a relatively short period of time pointed to a looming serials crisis in our disciplines. … As I mentioned, when we think of the “serials crisis” we have tended to associate it with journals in the Sciences. Humanities journals, including titles in Theology and Religion are priced at a fraction of Science journals. I threw this table up on the screen from figures I pulled from the 2014 Library Journal Periodical Price Survey. Since Philosophy Religion journals are so “cheap” we might be tempted to ask, “So what’s the problem?” To illustrate the problem as I see it, I shared some in-progress research I am doing on title and price changes for Theological and Religious Studies journals published by the Big 5 commercial academic publishers… Your comments are welcome. Gary F. Daught Omega Alpha | Open Access Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com oa.openaccess at gmail dot com | @OAopenaccess ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I'd have to say yes
-Original Message- From: Reckling, Falk [mailto:falk.reckl...@fwf.ac.at] Sent: 27 June 2014 07:40 To: Richard Poynder Subject: AW: [GOAL] Re: Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I'd have to say yes sorry, that's the correct url: http://www.journalprices.com/ ___ Falk J. Reckling, PhD Strategic Analysis Department Head Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Sensengasse 1 A-1090 Vienna Tel: +43-1-5056740-8861 Mobile: +43-664-5307368 Email: falk.reckl...@fwf.ac.at Twitter: FWFOpenAccess -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Reckling, Falk Sent: 27 June 2014 07:19 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I'd have to say yes True Jeroen, The very interesting database www.journalpricing.com shows the following picture: 1. The share of journals run by non-profit publishers in HSS is similar to most of STM disciplines, and the share of journals run by for-profit publishers seems to be increasing in all disciplines. 2. The prices differences between commercial and non-commercial publishers are huge in all disciplines. 3. Although the average price per journal is much higher in STM, the difference disappears if one takes the price per article as a measure, even if one can assumes that an article in the HSS are usually longer than in STM. For example, the median journal price in the field of History was around $400 last year and in Chemistry, that is the most expansive discipline of all, it was $1.800. But the median price per article in a History journals was $21 and in Chemical journals $13. The reason is quite simple. Chemical journals publish on the average 10 times more articles per journal than History journals. Best, Falk ___ Falk J. Reckling, PhD Strategic Analysis Department Head Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Sensengasse 1 A-1090 Vienna Tel: +43-1-5056740-8861 Mobile: +43-664-5307368 Email: falk.reckl...@fwf.ac.at Twitter: FWFOpenAccess -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] Im Auftrag von Bosman, J.M. (Jeroen) Gesendet: Freitag, 27. Juni 2014 08:04 An: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Betreff: [GOAL] Re: Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I'd have to say yes Gary, Not wanting to defend high price increases I do think that you should take into account the number of papers published in the average journal in the various fields and how this number develops over time. The typical humanities journal may have 4-6 issues with 4-8 papers, so 16-48 papers per annum whereas the typical chemistry journal may have 8-12 issues with 24-48 papers resulting in 192-572 papers per annum. This partly explaines the big interfield journal cost variety. I suspect that the pressure to publish and sheer growth of the number of researchers has caused these numbers to rise over the past few years, also in humanities. That also partly explaines the rising journal costs. So take a per article view. Or academics should decide to write less and read and think more ;-) Jeroen Bosman Utrecht University Library -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Omega Alpha | Open Access Sent: woensdag 25 juni 2014 17:58 To: goal@eprints.org; sparc-oafo...@arl.org Subject: [GOAL] Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I'd have to say yes Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I'd have to say yes http://wp.me/p20y83-X4 The other day, over on Library Journal's website, Dorothea Salo published a short piece entitled Is There a Serials Crisis Yet? Between Chicken Little and the Grasshopper, which, as it happens, I read the evening after participating on a panel presentation at the American Theological Library Association's annual conference in New Orleans. The panel was entitled Open Access: Responding to a Looming 'Serials Crisis' in Theological and Religious Studies. My role on the panel was to place the case for open access within a context that suggested unsustainable journal pricing was no longer limited to disciplines in the Sciences. Although Humanities journals, including those in Theological and Religious Studies, are still typically priced at a fraction of Science journals, I provided evidence that rapid increases in prices over a relatively short period of time pointed to a looming serials crisis in our disciplines. . As I mentioned, when we think of the serials crisis we have tended to associate it with journals in the Sciences. Humanities journals,
[GOAL] CALL for Expressions of Interest in hosting the annual Open Repositories Conference, 2016
Apologies for cross-posting -- June 27, 2014 Read it online: http://bit.ly/1rE2cKe -- CALL for Expressions of Interest in Hosting the Annual Open Repositories Conference, 2016 -- The Open Repositories Steering Committee seeks Expressions of Interest from candidate host organizations for the 2016 Open Repositories Annual Conference. Proposals from all geographic areas will be given consideration. -- Important dates -- The Open Repositories Steering Committee is accepting Expressions of Interest to host the OR2016 conference until August 24th 2014. Shortlisted sites will be notified before the end of September 2014. -- Background -- Candidate institutions must have the ability to host a four-day conference of approximately 300-500 attendees (OR2014 held recently in Helsinki, Finland drew more than 450 people). This includes appropriate access to conference facilities, lodging, and transportation, as well as the ability to manage a range of supporting services (food services, internet services, and conference social events; conference web site; management of registration and online payments; etc.). The candidate institutions and their local arrangements committee must have the means to support the costs of producing the conference through attendee registration and independent fundraising. Fuller guidance is provided in the Open Repositories Conference Handbook on the Open Repositories wiki. -- Expressions of Interest Guidelines -- Organisations interested in proposing to host the OR2016 conference should follow the steps listed below: 1. Expressions of Interest (EoIs) must be received by August 24th, 2014. Please direct these EoIs and any enquiries to OR Steering Committee Chair Carol Minton Morris cmmor...@duraspace.org. 2. As noted above, the Open Repositories wiki has a set of pages at Open Repositories Conference Handbook which offer guidelines for organizing an Open Repositories conference. Candidate institutions should pay particular attention to the pages listed at Preparing a bid before submitting an EoI. 3. The EoI must include: * the name of the institution (or institutions in the case of a joint bid) * an email address as a first point of contact * the proposed location for the conference venue with a brief paragraph describing * the local amenities that would be available to delegates, including its proximity to a reasonably well-served airport 4. The OR Steering Committee will review proposals and may seek advice from additional reviewers. Following the review, one or more institutions will be invited to submit a detailed proposal. 5. Invitations to submit a detailed proposal will be issued before the end of September 2014; institutions whose interest will not be taken up will also be notified at that time. The invitations sent out will provide a timeline for submitting a formal proposal and details of additional information available to the shortlisted sites for help in the preparation of their bid. The OR Steering Committee will be happy to answer specific queries whilst proposals are being prepared. -- About Open Repositories -- Since 2006 Open Repositories has hosted an annual conference that brings together users and developers of open digital repository platforms. For further information about Open Repositories and links to past conference sites, please visit the OR home page: http://sites.tdl.org/openrepositories/. Subscribe to announcements about Open Repositories conferences by joining the OR Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/open-repositories. Please feel free to reflect this call for Expressions of Interest out through your communities. Thank you! The Open Repositories Conference Steering Committee ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, Id have to say yes
Jeroen/Falk, Greetings. Thanks for your insights. I doubtlessly over-simplified the situation when offering a disciplinary comparison. Frequency and volume are bound to affect publication costs, and hence subscription costs. It is true that Humanities articles tend to be longer, though maybe this is off-set somewhat, for example, by the use of charts and images in Science articles. In my defense, especially as I hail from a small liberal arts college context, it may be small comfort to try to parse-out a subscription cost by saying, “Well look at how many more articles we get each year from this journal.” A journal that is too expensive is simply too expensive. Though certainly more precise, I’m not sure how many librarians base budget decisions on article counts. Of course my main point still stands, and I think Falk reinforced it in part when alluding to the journal pricing website, and saying: prices differences between commercial and non-commercial publishers are huge in all disciplines.” If the trend toward commercial acquisition of non-commercial journals continue, the result is going to be higher subscription prices within our disciplines. It is what we are seeing in Theological and Religious Studies. We must strenuously encourage societies and academic institutions not to sell-out their (our!) intellectual assets to commercial publishers. My other main point is the unsustainable rate of price increases for journal subscriptions over time, again, a factor that we witness with commercial publishers with far greater frequency than with non-commercial publishers. While societies will allow a subscription rate to remain flat or increase slowly over many years, a commercial publisher is sure to impose regular annual increases—as much as the market will bear. A commercial publisher sees absolutely no sense in this behavior that only suggests to them an under-valuing of a profitable intellectual property. It may make little or no business sense because the society (ideally) does not view its journal(s) as either a property or as a business. Rather, it is an expression of an intellectual mission—a medium of communication for the dissemination of knowledge. Have a great weekend! Gary F. Daught Omega Alpha | Open Access Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com/ oa.openaccess at gmail dot com | @OAopenaccess On Jun 27, 2014, at 4:20 AM, goal-requ...@eprints.org wrote: Gary, Not wanting to defend high price increases I do think that you should take into account the number of papers published in the average journal in the various fields and how this number develops over time. The typical humanities journal may have 4-6 issues with 4-8 papers, so 16-48 papers per annum whereas the typical chemistry journal may have 8-12 issues with 24-48 papers resulting in 192-572 papers per annum. This partly explaines the big interfield journal cost variety. I suspect that the pressure to publish and sheer growth of the number of researchers has caused these numbers to rise over the past few years, also in humanities. That also partly explaines the rising journal costs. So take a per article view. Or academics should decide to write less and read and think more ;-) Jeroen Bosman Utrecht University Library …snip... True Jeroen, The very interesting database www.journalpricing.com shows the following picture: 1. The share of journals run by non-profit publishers in HSS is similar to most of STM disciplines, and the share of journals run by for-profit publishers seems to be increasing in all disciplines. 2. The prices differences between commercial and non-commercial publishers are huge in all disciplines. 3. Although the average price per journal is much higher in STM, the difference disappears if one takes the price per article as a measure, even if one can assumes that an article in the HSS are usually longer than in STM. For example, the median journal price in the field of History was around $400 last year and in Chemistry, that is the most expansive discipline of all, it was $1.800. But the median price per article in a History journals was $21 and in Chemical journals $13. The reason is quite simple. Chemical journals publish on the average 10 times more articles per journal than History journals. Best, Falk ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
