My impression of Lisa Richmond and the economists she quotes is that
they are rutting in the tracks of the unsigned and discredited Economic
Consulting Services Inc analysis published in 1989 by the ARL Serials
Prices Project. It is clearly one more piece of propaganda meant to justify
university mismanagement by shamelessly shifting the blame for the
decline of once-proud library resources.

Nowhere do they credit commercial publishers for starting journals later taken
over and often mismanaged into the red by scholarly associations. Nowhere
do they acknowledge the vision and risks (that would make nonprofit managers
cringe) assumed by the commercial sector. Nowhere do they recognize that
a wide variation in prices should be expected for service products that vary
in content and format.

More important, they ignore the greater cause for concern: the imbalance between
the growth of library funds and the exponentially rising output of academic R&D. This
was first analyzed by David J. Brown in ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING AND LIBRARIES
(Bowker-Saur, 1996). My further analyses showed how universities added to their
profits while they trimmed library spending.

Universities have "profits?" If you doubt me, subtract university expenditures
from income as published in the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION and
DIGEST OF EDUCATION STATISTICS. You will find some surpluses exceed
twenty per cent of revenue and some much more than any commercial publisher
could report. Even public universities show growing surpluses.

Best wishes,

Albert Henderson, "Growth of printed literature in the 20th century," and "Journals
and the growth of serious/scholarly/scientific journals," in SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING
(Wiley, 2002): 1-24; 133-162..

Lisa Richmond did a very good job in this article, especially her explanation of how inelastic demand allows commercial publishers to exploit their monopoly positions.

There is one comment I believe is incorrect: “[Bundling] increases the subscription rate of the less-desirable titles, which often carry higher profit margins.” My understanding is that low-circulation titles usually bring in smaller profits, and that some publishers even keep a few on board that lose a little money. Also, the way bundles are contracted, it’s hard to say just what rates are for any individual title.

But this quibble about less-desirable titles doesn’t undermine the author’s thesis that bundles increase publishers’ monopoly power. As Hugh points out, it’s not a new idea, but I agree that Richmond’s article is a valuable critique of the “Big Deal.”

Ste ve Black

Reference, Serials, and Instruction Librarian

Neil Hellman Library

The College of Saint Rose

392 Western Ave.

Albany, NY 12203

(518) 458-5494

blacks@strose.edu

From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Crane, Hugh
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11 :28 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Commercial domination of academic e-journals

The June issue of “Z Magazine” includes an article entitled “The Dark Side of Online Journals.” It is written by an academic librarian & cites a 20number of scholarly articles. The article is also available on the magazine’s website as free content (http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/21606.) The story may be old hat to many of you, but it is valuable to see the research tied together by a provocative theory.

Hugh M. Crane

Assistant Head of Reference

Cambridge (MA) Public Library