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Highwire presentation: What's a publisher to do?
This document discusses strategies for publishers coping with open access. It defines open access and legacy publications. It explains that journals fall into rings of vulnerability based on how likely they are to have subscriptions cancelled. The core is never cancelled while the outer ring is vulnerable. It advises publishers to get journals into the inner rings through superior content and practices. Open access threatens exclusivity and leads to leakage outside traditional business models. The future likely involves running legacy publications for cash flow as long as possible while investing in new innovative products to replace them.
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Highwire presentation: What's a publisher to do?
- 1. What’s a Publisherto Do? Coping with Open Access Joseph J. Esposito Portable CEO Highwire Press Presentation espositoj@gmail.com April 21, 2005
- 2. Topics • Defining OpenAccess • What is a legacy publication? • What is beyond the scope of this talk? • Defining and defending one’s interests • The “rings” of journal subscriptions • Moving to the inner rings • OA: Friend or foe? • Leakage • After legacy publications, what?
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- 4. What is OpenAccess? • Various definitions and conventions (Budapest, Bethesda, etc.) • Potentially covers all intellectual property • For our purposes, we are discussing only research journals • Lowest-common-denominator OA: accessible by anyone with a Web browser
- 5. Legacy Publication • Alreadyexists; not a new publication • Some revenue derived from subscriptions • Medium is irrelevant (print or electronic) • Conforms to scholarly conventions (e.g., prepublication peer review) • Profits or surplus (if any) distributed to shareholders or used for other activities • Universe: about 24,000
- 6. Not on theTable Today . . . • The future of scholarly communications • The ideal way research should be conducted and disseminated • New business models • New businesses • Responsibilities of the scholarly community • Instead, let’s talk about your interests as a journal publisher
- 7. One Community, ManyInterests • Librarians seek comprehensive collections • Librarians seek lower prices • Scholars seek to publish and to read • Administrators seek metrics to guide in tenure decisions • Publishers seek markets and a competitive return on capital • None of these is a “wrong” interest
- 8. Why Do LibrariansCancel Subscriptions? • Poor quality of journal • Shifting academic requirements • Limited budget (price increases, university cutbacks, allocations for new products and projects) • Availability of material from other sources • Resistance to business practices • Etc.
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- 10. Strategy: Get tothe Center • Superior editorial program • Superior business practices • Exclusivity of content
- 11. What Makes ContentNot Exclusive? • Availability through aggregators • Liberal interlibrary loan policies • Liberal single-document availability • Open Access (lowest-common- denominator variety) • OA is just one of several ways that exclusivity is undermined
- 12. Leakage • The “escape”of copyrighted material from sealed containers • Sometimes legitimate, mostly not • Various means (preprint servers, institutional repositories, mandated archives, simple email attachments) • Leakage is inevitable • DRM mostly not effective
- 13. Tactics • Avoid confrontationsover OA • Slow down the slide toward OA without alienating customers and readers • Run legacy journals as mature businesses (maximize cash, reduce marketing) • Extend the life as long as possible, generating as much cash as you can • Use the cash to invest in new products, not in the legacy journals
- 14. What Does theFuture Look Like? • All journals are mature • Some will be run for cash (the right way) • Some publishers will invest in legacy journals (siphoning off capital) • Use cash to start innovative products (innovate by form, not by content)—e.g., heirs to arXiv • A multiplicity of forms will evolve
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