Transcript Some Recent Issues on the Business of Journal Publishing:An Independent Point of View Klaus Kaiser Houston Journal of Mathematics [email protected] http://math.uh.edu/~hjm.

Some Recent Issues on the
Business of Journal
Publishing:An Independent
Point of View
Klaus Kaiser
Houston Journal of Mathematics
[email protected]
http://math.uh.edu/~hjm
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Contents
• Should Independent Journals do their own
Electronic Archiving
• Management of the Archive and Delivery of
Electronic Documents
• Various Ways to Sell a Journal
• Some Thoughts on the Pay-Per-View Option
• The Problem of Assigning ISSN Numbers for
Electronic Editions
• Data Object Identifier, CrossRef and Metadata
• Conclusion
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Should Independent Journals Do Their
Own Archiving?
• The most prominent publishers have come up with
different answers:
• Springer journals are archived (for free?) by the GDZ.
GDZ provides free access!
• GDZ invites also smaller, independent journals.
Primarily from Central Europe.
• Elsevier has an in-house program with the Archive as
an additional commercial unit.
• AMS uses JSTOR which is very expensive.
• Archiving contributes to the idea of The Digital
Mathematics Library, DML.
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• After a careful analysis, HJM decided to do its own archiving:
• HJM had already established a comprehensive index of all
published issues:
http://www.math.uh.edu/~hjm/v01-v05.html
Recent titles were already linked to TOC’s.
• The blueprint for the Archive had already been laid out. The
digitizer could work from the index in order to create TOC’s. For
HJM there was only some minor additional work: Like, to correct
on TOC’s last page number for papers with an odd number of
pages.
• Besides the usual costs of scanning, there were only $250 for
programming setup.
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• Most important benefit of having the archive on the premises:
Continual forward/backward linking of related articles.
• Technical Issues: Choice of File Format and additional features.
• HJM chose PDF. The only other serious contender, DjVu, is far
less popular and has advantages that are important only for
photographs and graphics. Not an issue for journals like HJM.
• 400 dpi is fully sufficient. Many volumes of older issues were
originally prepared as camera ready copies from IBM ballhead
typewriters and simple lasers. Also JSTOR uses 300 dpi and is
known for decent printouts. The GDZ uses 600 dpi.
• OCR can become very important, e.g., when files are eventually
stored at large repositories, e.g., DMLs or file servers run by the
subscription agencies. JSTOR has added OCR but the GDZ has
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not. HJM has added OCR.
• File unit: Individual papers for posting on the WEB.
Individual issues or volumes can be delivered on CD’s.
•HJM funds paid for the Archive. HJM tried to get outside
funding but it didn’t work out. HJM had offered free
unrestricted access in exchange.
• HJM provides now access to its Archive for free, but only for
subscribing libraries that have agreed to the HJM License
Agreement Form:
http://www.math.uh.edu/~hjm/license02.html
• Most important points: No ILLs. Immediate access to all
previous issues regardless of subscription history. All access
privileges cease with cancellation.
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• Pay-Per-View has been put on the backburner. Currently only
publishers can provide a PPV service that also includes
requests from individuals. Accepting credit card payments is a
stumbling block. Requests from individuals are currently
honored as a matter of courtesy.
• Archived issues lack individual abstracts. Should links to MR
and Zentralblatt serve as substitute? Sounds like a good idea.
Some journals (e.g., those archived by Project Euclid and the
French digitizing project Numdam) are doing this.
• Because only a link is provided, this is probably not a
copyright issue. But should papers be linked to reviews?
• Problem: A reviewer writes his assessment with the
understanding to be published in the reviews and not become in
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any way a fixture of the reviewed paper.
• Confronted with this issue, an overwhelming majority of
HJM editors voted that HJM should not provide links from
papers to reviews.
• Links from reviews to papers are less problematic and even
desirable.
• Should libraries be able to buy the whole Archive? I think the
answer should be YES. But currently most libraries are
satisfied with buying access and not files. However, amongst
major libraries, Berkeley has already expressed strong interest.
Of course, price could be a factor, as well as copyright
agreements.
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Various Ways to sell a Journal
Traditionally: In print to libraries as volumes in form
of annual subscriptions
More recent: Online access to current and previous
issues. With or without print subscription
Latest Trend: Pay-Per-View, sale of files for
individual papers
Extreme Commercialism: Sale of enhanced
abstracts, that is abstracts as PDF files together
with the list of references
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Some thoughts on the Pay-Per-View Option
• PPV is gaining popularity. Offered by commercials as
well as academic publishers
• But is PPV useful? Not according to a 2001study of
Stanford University Libraries. Only 12% of
respondents found it useful. Urgent need only reason.
Control group consisted primarily of medical
researcher. Restricted to mathematicians need for PPV
is probably minimal
• Libraries may consider PPV as only option to make an
expensive journal partially available
• For non academic institutions substitute for
maintaining a library
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• For inexpensive journals, PPV is not an attractive option for
libraries
•PPV ranges between $15-$30 for math papers, this amounts
to a ppp between $1 and $2. Not unusual for commercial
journals but for independent journals, $0.1 -$0.17 is the
norm. For a few downloads, a library could buy a whole
volume.
• PPV raises academic concerns: Possible conflict with
offprints and authors posting files.
• The Wiley solution: No more free offprints; authors receive
a low resolution PDF file and are allowed only a limited
number of printouts
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• PPV as service for non-academic institutions and for
providing files of archived papers does not cause conflicts
with the authors rights to distribute their own papers freely.
• Most subscription agencies provide PPV only for their own
academic clientele and only when they are allowed to host the
journal.
• To be effective, PPV must be provided on the journals
Website. For academic journals this poses the problem of
accepting credit card payments and of related bookkeeping.
HJM is in holding mode.
• Possible Solution: Journal Delivery Services might work
directly with files and not only from hard copies.
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The Problem of Assigning ISSN
Numbers for Electronic Editions
• Do electronic editions of a print journal need an
•
•
•
•
additional ISSN number?
Depends on your point of view. If it is like paperback
versus hardcover: YES
If it is like a CD included in a book: No
For various other reasons, I feel the answer can be
NO.
Primary Reason for NO: Nobody has asked so far for
another dumb number. Five Year Review of ISSN
standard is now also leaning towards NO.
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DOI, CrossRef, MetaData
• Basic idea: A unique number can be used to
identify a file with its location (URL) on the
WEB.
• Problem: URLs are not stable, usually change
when publishers change. Publisher may move files
around.
• Solution: Create for every document a unique #,
the DOI (DataObjectIdentifier). An organization
will keep track of its location on the WEB.
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• Implementation: A Publisher applies through an agency, e.g.,
CrossRef for a publisher ID. The DOI organizations assigns a
nmber, say 10.1007 which here identifies Springer Verlag.
The DOIs of all publications of Springer Verlag then have this
number as prefix. prefix/suffix then constitutes the full DOI
which must be submitted to CrossRef, together with MetaData
in a specific format. For example
•http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00211-002-0445-6
•serves as URL for an article in Numerische Mathematik while
•http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00134-003-1821-0
links to an article about SARS in Springers Intensive Care
Medicine
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• Benefits: CrossRef provides reference linking, but only
amongst its members. Members are the big commercial
publishers plus members of Project Euclid. AMS has sent out
mixed signals.
• Disadvantages: All sorts of fees for initial memberships,
annual dues and individual registrations. Plus personnel costs.
For math journals there are no immediate benefits. Reviews
and Zentralblatt provide already to a high extent interlinking
of the whole math literature which includes the past.
• HJM maintains a wait and see attitude. Currently, there are
no tangible benefits.
•Off the Record: Is DOI/CrossRef already the white elephant
of the internet?
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Conclusion
• Recent developments, like DOI and PPV have
been embraced by all major commercial
publishers. Most of the independents have
ignored DOI and PPV, for academic as well as
economic reasons.
• I feel that Archiving should be done by the
publisher. I don’t see any compelling reason why
an Archive should reside outside the publishers
domain.
• Having all issues under one roof increases the
value of the journal’s WEB site. Smaller
publishers can do this more easily than larger
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ones.