[Open-access] [open-science] Elsevier: some facts, by Tim Gowers

Wed Apr 30 09:18:45 UTC 2014

The reason for concentrating on Elsevier is simply their size - in the UK,
well over a third of subscription costs paid by universities to publishers
goes to Elsevier.

I have a feeling that reasonably complete data on subscription payments
from the UK is going to be available soon...

On 30 April 2014 09:51, Michelle Brook <michelle.brook at okfn.org> wrote:

> I've currently going FOIs in to Russell Group Unis (a small subset of UK
> universities for the non-UK based on the list) about Wiley, OUP and
> Springer. Any help going beyond these three, and beyond the Russell Group
> would be appreciated.
>
> I've not previously though about asking NHS Trusts or patent office for
> subscriptions. Good call - although I don't currently have the time to do
> this.
>
> I fully support capturing information on individual countries, and would
> be very keen for those in other countries to start capturing this data -
> sharing it either in a Google spreadsheet, or on the wiki:
> http://wiki.okfn.org/Open_@ccess
>
> Michelle
>
>
>
>
> On 30 April 2014 09:34, Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> To some extent I agree with you there Bjoern.
>>
>> It would be good to also highlight the wastefulness & lack of value for
>> subscriptions paid to NPG, Wiley, Springer, T+F, SAGE etc...
>>
>> Recent replies to this thread have turned up some interesting ideas
>> however that could be applied regionally/by country
>>
>> e.g. has anyone in the UK FOI'd the UK patent office or NHS Trusts
>> (hospitals) to see how much they pay for journal subscriptions?
>> Is that information available anywhere, already?
>>
>> > we ought to perhaps, if anything, focus on the individual countries,
>> so we can say to each citizen: "you are wasting this much of your taxes on
>> legacy publishing"
>>
>> Agreed (but whilst remembering that each and nearly every other country
>> **also** pays, redundantly).
>> The more data, country-level or otherwise the better!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 30 April 2014 09:23, Bjoern Brembs <b.brembs at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wednesday, April 30, 2014, 9:47:46 AM, you wrote:
>>>
>>> > Just one comment: You should probably also add in some
>>> > thousands (?) of major hospitals as subscribers to a
>>> > number of Elsevier journals in your  calculations.
>>>
>>> I must admit, I have some difficulty following this obsession with
>>> Elsevier. As if the other publishers were any different?
>>>
>>> From one major investigation, we know quite well what we are paying:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676
>>>
>>> "Data from the consulting firm Outsell in Burlingame, California,
>>> suggest that the science-publishing industry generated $9.4 billion in
>>> revenue in 2011 and published around 1.8 million English-language articles
>>> — an average revenue per article of roughly $5,000."
>>>
>>> Is there anything else we need beyond these figures? What am I missing?
>>>
>>> Legacy publishers: US$5000
>>> SciELO: US$90
>>> Arxiv: US$7
>>>
>>> Multiplied by the number of papers published, this is what we would be
>>> paying, if we used one of these exclusively:
>>>
>>> Legacy: 10b
>>> SciELO: 0.18b
>>> Arxiv: 0.014b
>>>
>>> Do we need any figures beyond that? Rather than focusing on one
>>> publisher, we ought to perhaps, if anything, focus on the individual
>>> countries, so we can say to each citizen: "you are wasting this much of
>>> your taxes on legacy publishing".
>>>
>>> I must be missing something that people spend so much time on Elsevier,
>>> when we already seem to have all the numbers we need. What am I missing?
>>>
>>> Bjoern
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Björn Brembs
>>> ---------------------------------------------
>>> http://brembs.net
>>> Neurogenetics
>>> Universität Regensburg
>>> Germany
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
>> Ross Mounce
>> Fossils, Phylogeny and Macroevolution Research Group
>> University of Bath, 4 South Building, Lab 1.07
>> http://about.me/rossmounce
>> -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
>
> *Michelle Brook *
>
> *Science and Open Access *
>
> * | @MLBrook <https://twitter.com/MLBrook> *
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>
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