Institutional Repositories and Open Access

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Institutional Repositories and Open Access a
threat to society publishers or an opportunity?

• Nick Evans
• Chief Operating Officer, ALPSP
• nick.evans_at_alpsp,org

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What I shall talk about

• Are Institutional Repositories a fact of life?
• What is the likely effect on journals?
• Does it matter?
• What should societies do about it?

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Are IRs a fact of life?

• Not much evidence that academics actually want
  them
• But if self-archiving becomes mandatory, most say
  they will comply
• Growing number of research funders and
  institutions leaning towards voluntary or
  mandatory self-archiving policies
• Increasing inter-operability will heighten appeal

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What is the likely effect on journals?

• Two surveys showing very clearly that when a
  sufficient percentage of the final version of
  author articles is freely (and easily) available,
  cancellations will follow
• Mark Ware Factors in Journal Cancellation
  (ALPSP, 2006)
• Chris Beckett Simon Inger Self-archiving and
  Journal Subscriptions co-existence or
  competition? (PRC, 2006)http//www.publishingrese
  arch.net/

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• Ware
• 340 responses
• 81 said availability in an OA repository would
  be a very important or important factor in
  cancellation decisions (but behind pricing (95),
  usage (95), user needs (93))
• Preprint/postprint versions not seen as adequate
  substitute (but PDF is)
• 32 think publishers should not be worried
• 11 think they should
• 54 think its too early to tell

• Beckett Inger
• 424 responses
• a significant number of librarians are
  likely to substitute OA materials for subscribed
  resources, given certain levels of reliability,
  peer review and currency
• Authors unrefereed, uncorrected original MS is
  least adequate substitute
• Post-peer review version (irrespective of
  publishers editing) is adequate
• 38 think publishers should not be worried
• 38 think they should

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What is the likely effect on journals?

• Publishers experience to date subscriptions
• 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 2 month embargo,
  average annual subscription growth fell from 84
  to 8
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
  1 month embargo in 2000 ?11 fall in
  subscriptionsin 2001 6 months embargo reduced
  this to 9 in 2002
• What rational librarian, faced with the need to
  cancel some journals, would not choose those
  whose content is freely available elsewhere?

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Does it matter?

• If many subscription journals disappear, will
  this matter?
• We all need to be aware of the likely of the
  likely consequences of our actions

8
Revenues from subscriptions support other
activities
Ulrichs Periodicals Directory, 2005 (analysis
by Raym Crow)
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• Non profit publishers put any surplus back into
  their other activities
• In particular, Learned Society publishers use
  surplus to support
• Conferences (33 of respondents applied median 7
  of their publishing surpluses to this)
• Membership fees (32 of respondents, 15 of
  surpluses)
• Public education (26 of respondents, 7.5 of
  surpluses)
• Bursaries (26 of respondents, 7.5 of surpluses)
• Research (21 of respondents, 25 of surpluses)
• Christine Baldwin, What do Learned Societies do
  with their Publishing Surpluses?
  (ALPSP/Blackwell, 2004)
• ? Knock-on effects for the scholarly community if
  publishing surpluses are reduced or eliminated

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Which journals are most vulnerable?

• Single- (or few-) journal publishers
• Over 97 of society publishers publish three or
  fewer journals, with almost 90 publishing just
  one title.
• Raym Crow, Publishing Cooperatives an
  alternative for society publishers (SPARC, 2006)
• Society publishers limited to specific
  discipline
• Niche journals
• Low circulation ? higher price
• Low-profit journals
• Less room for manoeuvre

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What should publishers do about it?

• Awareness
• Publishers need to make sure that the communities
  with which they engage understand the likely
  consequences of widespread mandatory
  self-archiving
• Funders and others need to understand that one
  size does not fit all
• subjects differ
• journals differ
• The information must be based on factual
  evidence research should continue into
  theactual effects as self-archiving mandates
  begin to bite

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Publishers must

• Make content as available as possible (without
  going bust!)
• Decide if they can switch to Open Access
  publishing or not (one-fifth are experimenting)
• Hybrid/author-choice model a possible first step
  (as advocated by David Prosser)
• If not, decide whether they need an embargo
  period to protect subscriptions, and if so how
  long
• Will authors abide by this?
• At the same time, be creative about adding value
  to scholarly communicationin new ways

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Adding value . . .
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What should we do about it?

• Understand what journals are for
• Journals serve authors and readers (directly) and
  funders and institutions (indirectly)
• Both publishers and those whom journals serve
  need to analyse the functions currently carried
  out by journals, and
• establish which of these must be preserved
• and work out ways of doing so

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Peer review tusks
Librarian
RAE Canopy
Grant locators
Institutional Repository Handmaidens
Author
Web 2.0 tools
Research seeking tool
OA Advocate
The elephant in the room?
Publisher
Bank Manager
Google
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Thank you

• Nick Evans
• Chief Operating Officer, ALPSP
• nick.evans_at_alpsp.org
• 44 0(20) 8789 2394