Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
based on the value that they perceive their products to be offering to
the world; customers (particularly libraries) would like the products to
be within reach for all and are generally suspicious of value-based
pricing, even when they agree (and often they do not) with publishers'
assessments of the objective value of their products. Since publishers
have monopoly control of articles and books in which they hold
copyright, they are in practice free to set prices according to their
desires. This fact has led both to prices that are, in some cases,
prohibitively high and to calls (some successful) for various kinds of
government intervention. How this will all play out remains to be seen,
although the movement towards mandated Open Access (OA)
archiving had gained significant momentum by the end of 2008
(Cambridge University Library, 2009).
Sustainability of the subscription model
From a purely economic perspective, the subscription model is clearly
sustainable; it has been sustained for centuries and did not begin to
show cracks until prices began spiralling out of control. It is difficult to
imagine that, if all scientific journals were priced at $15 per year and
price increases never exceeded 1% annually, anyone would claim that
the system was broken.
However, there is a more subtle sense in which the subscription
model is less clearly sustainable. The journal subscription is a left-over
artefact of the print era, when the constraints of physical printing and
distribution made it necessary to bundle articles together and ship them
out as issues. Identifying and individually purchasing only the articles
one wanted was not practical, so in order to gain access to those articles
one had no choice but to buy many articles one did not want as well.
The online environment, in which printing is unnecessary and
distribution can be virtually instantaneous, requires neither bundling
nor the purchase of unwanted articles in order to get the articles one
needs. The fact that we continue to accept the subscription model and
the issue structure in this environment is puzzling, and cannot last.
Eventually, subscribers will realize that a journal subscription means
buying large amounts of content that is not wanted or needed and will
refuse to subscribe. Budget cuts will only hasten this development.
This will (and arguably already does) pose a very difficult problem for
