[Open-access] Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I’d have to say yes

Wed Jun 25 15:59:32 UTC 2014

Is there a serials crisis yet? When it comes to Theological and Religious Studies journals, I’d have to say yes
http://wp.me/p20y83-X4

The other day, over on Library Journal’s website, Dorothea Salo published a short piece entitled “Is There a Serials Crisis Yet? Between Chicken Little and the Grasshopper,” which, as it happens, I read the evening after participating on a panel presentation at the American Theological Library Association’s annual conference in New Orleans. The panel was entitled “Open Access: Responding to a Looming ‘Serials Crisis’ in Theological and Religious Studies.” My role on the panel was to place the case for open access within a context that suggested unsustainable journal pricing was no longer limited to disciplines in the Sciences. Although Humanities journals, including those in Theological and Religious Studies, are still typically priced at a fraction of Science journals, I provided evidence that rapid increases in prices over a relatively short period of time pointed to a looming serials crisis in our disciplines. …

As I mentioned, when we think of the “serials crisis” we have tended to associate it with journals in the Sciences. Humanities journals, including titles in Theology and Religion are priced at a fraction of Science journals. I threw this table up on the screen from figures I pulled from the 2014 Library Journal Periodical Price Survey. Since Philosophy & Religion journals are so “cheap” we might be tempted to ask, “So what’s the problem?”

To illustrate the problem as I see it, I shared some in-progress research I am doing on title and price changes for Theological and Religious Studies journals published by the Big 5 commercial academic publishers…

Your comments are welcome.

Gary F. Daught
Omega Alpha | Open Access
Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology
http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com
oa.openaccess at gmail dot com | @OAopenaccess