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University Library Committee 2000-2001


Scholarly Publishing: Issues and Solutions

    Discussion within ULC, November 15, 2000

    I. Background: three major trends

    • Dramatic increases in journal costs

    Average increases 9-11% per year

    UO budget augments average 2-4% per year

    Cycle starting in the mid-1980's:

    cancellations - fewer subscriptions sold - higher cost/subscription

    Some commercial publishers profit during this period:

    Wolters Kluwer 37.5% profit for FY 97-98

    Reed Elsevier 33.7% profit for FY 97-98

    Average profit: 19.3%

    • Increasing commercialization of scholarly publishing:

    Major mergers, e.g., Elsevier's bid for Harcourt

    Buy-outs of non-profits and smaller publishers, e.g. Thomson "raid" on Chapman & Hall.

    • Limited potential to access published research

    Library acquisition rates are dropping.

    Journal cost inflation - cancelled subscriptions, drop in monograph purchases

    UO cancelled $850,000 in serial titles since 1992. (approx. 2400 titles or 14%, 2.5 times the average rate of other research libraries).

    Rationing system, e.g. IEE charges $29,000 for Inspec. No attempt to widen the market, profit margins are maximized at this level.

    II. Research university community is beginning to establish goals and taking specific actions to address these issues.

    • Goals include:

    Shift the balance of power from the publishers to the creator of scholarly information, e.g. through retention of copyright

    Create alternatives to high-priced commercial publications, e.g. SPARC Changes in the peer review process that emphasize quality, e.g. Tempe Principles 
    • Specific library actions include:

    Consortial purchases, e.g. Orbis group discounts on e-resources

    Cooperative collection development and document delivery.

    Cancellations based in part on price (OSU)

    Cancellations based in part on price increases (UO)

    Cancellations based on cost/effectiveness ratios (Wisconsin)

    Cap on expenditures with certain publishers e.g. Utah/Elsevier

    • Specific actions campus-wide:

    Meetings of faculty, symposiums,

    • Specific actions within the publishing arena:

    Government sponsored competition (PubMed Central)

    Alternative publications: SPARC

    Discipline-based pre-print and reprint servers (Physics Los Alamos server)

    Collaborative research sites: Project Euclid, Columbia Earthscape, BioOne.

    Other proposals:

    NEAR (publishers retain exclusive rights for a limited time, then articles would be submitted into a national repository). 

    Open Archives. Each University would establish its own server, and the penultimate version of the article would go on that server. A harvester would search across servers. http://www.openarchives.org/

    General Observation (DAC comments): "The research community probably let this crisis go on too long. Our most common solution was to throw money at the problem, but because most publishers have enjoyed market power, the money solution has been short term. It seems as if the stasis is beginning to break up. Several efforts are underway to help create change, and this is encouraging. A new system of scholarly communication will likely require a combination of several approaches to make a difference."

Maintained by: Sheila Gray, skgray@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 02/07/2008