Are academic journals
becoming obsolete?
Ted Bergstrom
University of
California, Santa
Barbara
Traditional Role of library
• The obvious way for
scholars to share
printed journals was to
have their university
library subscribe to
them and store them.
• But are libraries
needed for electronic
journals?
Electronic Site licenses
• Libraries buy site
licenses for electronic
access.
• Supply workstations
at library.
• Also buy permission
for faculty and
students to access
from office or home.
What is library’s role?
• Most users of electronic journals do not go
to the library.
• It is feasible and easy for users to subscribe
directly with publisher.
• Libraries have become revenue collectors
for publishers.
• Is this beneficial for academic community?
Are site licenses beneficial?
• For nonprofit society journals, site licenses
give publisher revenue to recover the cost of
production, yet allow access to individuals
for free.
• This is an efficient arrangement--better
than charging individuals for access, since
marginal cost of serving a reader is zero.
But not always.
• Site licenses allow profit-maximizing publishers
to closely estimate willingness to pay and extract
extremely high profits from academic sector.
• See Bergstrom and Bergstrom, PNAS, Jan 2004
http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/mypapers.
html
Publishers’ traditional role
• Publishers have provided:
– Referee’s comments, quality control,
classification by interest.
– Copy editing and typesetting.
– Bundling articles into groups.
– Subscription management.
– Printing and distribution.
Publishers’ old business model
• Combine the functions of certification,
classification and distribution.
• Collect revenue from users supported by a
monopoly on distribution of articles that
have been submitted for certification.
• This model was sustainable with paper-only
journals. Distribution was difficult and
costly. This shaped industry.
New institutions for new
technology?
• With electronic access and computerized
type setting, distribution is much less costly.
• Author can typeset own article in TeX or
Word, and post it on own website or a
public archive.
• Separation of classification and certification
from distribution is now possible.
Functions of traditional referees
• Checking the work for mistakes.
• Read carefully and suggest improvements.
• Determine whether paper is important and
useful. (A much more ambiguous process.)
• Certify quality of work to non-specialists
who determine author’s promotion and
salary.
What motivates referees?
•
•
•
•
Referees are paid little or nothing.
Obligation to their field.
Desire to influence direction of work.
Cultivate good will of editors so that they
are more likely to be published.
Certification Models
• Traditional refereeing without publishing.
– Authors submit papers to editorial board.
– Editorial board sends papers to referees.
– Editorial board lists recommended papers and provides
links to paper on archive site.
• Who pays the costs?
– Note that costs can be small.
– Author fees
• For submission
• For publication
– Voluntary university subscriptions
Non-traditional Certification
• Non-exclusive publication
• Article could be recommended and linked by a
publication with no requirement that it not be
published or recommended elsewhere.
• New models of refereeing. Interested readers
could comment after publication. Author could
respond. This needn’t be refereed, since storage
costs are very low.
• Indexes of citation and downloading.
Professional societies
• Professional societies are likely to remain
important.
• Coordinating device for recognizing high quality
scholarship.
• Currently publish the top journals in most fields.
• Annual meetings and social functions complement
publishing.
• Can expect some support from universities to
cover costs.
University Presses
• University Presses publish some journals to
advertise their university. Usually run as
non-profit or with small loss.
• A helpful coordinating device and source of
funds.
• Also allows for healthy decentralization.
Journals of the future?
• Low cost society and university press journals
with traditional refereeing process.
• Non-traditional “certification” journals without
publishing.
• A few high-end journals with high costs, staffs of
editors and promotional people.
– Science, Nature, PLOS journals, some flagship society
journals.
• Traditional commercial journals?
Things to strive for
• Promote open internet access to scientific
papers.
• Encourage evaluation and quality standards
without discouraging innovation.
• Avoid intellectual monopolies and cliques.
Suggestions for Chinese
scientific publishing
• Support open access archives for scientific
work.
• Insist that government supported research
be posted in these archives.
Further suggestions
• Encourage independent scientific societies
and university presses.
– More than one per discipline, to prevent
monopoly and cliques
• Encourage innovative “journal
substitutes” with alternative forms of
evaluation and certification.
Look for new
solutions to
match new
technology.