What’s a Publisher to Do?Coping with Open Access

Joseph J. EspositoPortable CEO

Highwire Press Presentationespositoj@gmail.com

April 21, 2005

Topics• Defining Open Access• 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?

Core—NeverCancelled

AlreadyCancelled

Unlikely to be cancelled

Vulnerablejournals; cancellationpossible

How vulnerable is your journal?

What is Open Access?

• 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

Legacy Publication

• Already exists; 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

Not on the Table 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

One Community, Many Interests

• 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

Why Do Librarians Cancel 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.

Core—NeverCancelled

AlreadyCancelled

Unlikely to be cancelled

Vulnerablejournals; cancellationpossible

How vulnerable is your journal?

Strategy: Get to the Center

• Superior editorial program• Superior business practices• Exclusivity of content

What Makes Content Not 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

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

Tactics

• Avoid confrontations over 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

What Does the Future 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

Core—NeverCancelled

AlreadyCancelled

Unlikely to be cancelled

Vulnerablejournals; cancellationpossible

How vulnerable is your journal?