Comments on: End of Free Access

By: JoVE Leaves Open Access Behind « The Scholarly Kitchen

JoVE Leaves Open Access Behind « The Scholarly Kitchen — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:50:52 +0000

[...] Crotty believes that striving for high production quality and editorial oversight made JoVE too expensive for a producer-pays model. PLoS recognized this fact earlier on, launching PLoS ONE under a less-stringent, high-volume model. Earlier this year, the Journal of Clinical Investigation implemented its first online subscription model. [...]

By: Michael Nielsen » Biweekly links for 03/23/2009

Michael Nielsen » Biweekly links for 03/23/2009 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:54:28 +0000

[...] End of Free Access « The Scholarly Kitchen [...]

By: Bench Marks » Blog Archive » Link Roundup 03-13-2009

Bench Marks » Blog Archive » Link Roundup 03-13-2009 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:28:14 +0000

[...] End of Free Access Surprised this one didn’t receive more notice in the open-access-leaning science blogosphere. The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), which went to free access for all articles in 1996 is now switching to a subscription-access only business model, as open access was not sustainable for their journal. [...]

By: BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » David Payne: BMJ in the news

BMJ Group blogs: BMJ » Blog Archive » David Payne: BMJ in the news — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:39:35 +0000

[...] in blogs End of free access – The Scholarly Kitchen Are you happy with your social network? – Envisa Learning Fertility Treatments Unlikely to Raise [...]

By: John Hawley

John Hawley — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:30:15 +0000

For what it’s worth, here’s the nonredacted version of my responses to the queries provided to me:

* How difficult was it to make this decision?

The JCI instituted access control for most non-research articles (commentaries, reviews, etc.) in January 2009. The history of the JCI publishing a mass of these types of articles is relatively brief, the last decade or so. While access control for this content was discussed in the past, the sentiment was that if the JCI could afford to make this content freely available, it should. This sentiment, however, progressively came up against hard costs — staffing, printing, and the like — for which there was no offsetting revenue such as there has been for the research articles published in the JCI. The decision to institute access control was not a strained one; there are costs to be met, and this was the one route available to determine if they could be met.

* Do you think there enough incentive for libraries to reinstate their subscriptions. Put another way, do you think there enough content outside the original research articles to demand a subscription?

We hope to bring back former institutional and individual subscribers, certainly. We feel that the articles we’re publishing are of standout quality, produced typically by leaders in their given fields. The metrics from citation rates to online usage suggest we’re hitting the mark. If quality isn’t a sufficient draw, it’s a problem not just for the JCI but many other journals.

* Considering the current financial market, will libraries have the leeway to reinstate subscriptions?

The economic climate for libraries has been eroding for some time, thanks to the avarice and near monopoly of commercial publishers. As a nonprofit publisher, I believe our role — our obligation — is to deliver the best journal we can at the lowest cost possible. We’ve done this; whether libraries can turn down the big deal to come back to us (and other nonprofit publications) remains to be seen.

* If new subscription revenue does not meet expectations, is there any recourse (e.g. increase submission fees, page fees, etc.)

There’s always a recourse.