Scholarly Publishing: Comparison between Commercial and Nonprofit Publishers

Galyani Moghaddam, Golnessa Scholarly Publishing: Comparison between Commercial and Nonprofit Publishers. Iranian Journal of Library and Information Science, 2007, vol. Vol.9,, n. No.36 . [Journal article (Paginated)]

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English abstract

Pricing is a critical aspect of economic and business models of scholarly electronic journals. This study, in accordance with conventional wisdom, has divided publishers into two broad groups—those in the for-profit sector (hereafter called commercial publishers) and those in the nonprofit sector (hereafter called nonprofit/university publishers)—and examines the differences between the two groups in terms of journal price. It focuses on eight publishers, four in each group, and 3,841 electronic journals published by them. The Average Subscription Price (ASP) and the Average Subscription Price per Issue (ASPPI) of the various publishers and disciplines in 2003 were calculated. A comparison of the two publisher groups revealed that the number of journals published by the commercial publishers was higher than the journals published by the nonprofit/university publishers. Blackwell was found to be the least expensive (US $455) among the four commercial publishers and Cambridge University Press had the lowest ASP (US $279) among the four nonprofit/university publishers. Ranked ASP and ASPPI showed that there is a remarkable difference between the commercial and nonprofit/university publishers studied. The Average Subscription Price of journals from the commercial publishers was 2.8 times higher than the ASP of journals from the nonprofit/university publishers, and the Average Subscription Price per Issue of commercial-owned journals was 1.8 times higher. These results confirm the findings of earlier studies in this regard. Physics and chemistry titles were the most expensive disciplines in comparison with the other subject categories surveyed.

Item type: Journal article (Paginated)
Keywords: Journal prices, Electronic journals, Scholarly journals, Commercial publishers, Non-profit publishers
Subjects: H. Information sources, supports, channels. > HN. e-journals.
B. Information use and sociology of information > BE. Information economics.
Depositing user: Golnessa Galyani Moghaddam
Date deposited: 23 Aug 2007
Last modified: 02 Oct 2014 12:09
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10760/10228

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