Serials crisis
Encyclopedia
The term serials crisis has become a common shorthand to describe the chronic subscription cost increases of many scholarly journals
. The prices of these institutional or library subscriptions have been rising much faster than the Consumer Price Index
for several decades, while the funds available to the libraries have remained static or have declined in real terms. As a result, academic and research libraries have regularly canceled serial subscriptions to accommodate price increases of the remaining current subscriptions.
for several decades. This chronic inflation is caused by several factors. Each journal title publishes unique research findings and as a result is a unique commodity that cannot be replaced in an academic library collection by another journal title, such as a less expensive journal on the same subject, as one could with commodities. The publisher thus has the ability to act as a monopolist. Scholarly journals vary greatly in quality as do the individual articles that they publish. The highest quality journals are often expected and demanded by scholars to be included in their institution's library collections, often with little regard or knowledge about the subscription costs. Traditional metrics for quality in scholarly journals include Impact Factor and Citation count as recorded by Journal Citation Reports. This leads to a price inelasticity
for these higher quality journals.
This includes a growth in the number of scholars and an increase in potential demand for these journals.
At the same time, funds available to purchase journals are often decreasing in real terms. Libraries
have seen their collection budgets decline in real terms compared to the United States Periodical Price Index. There are other library expenditures such as computers and networking equipment that have also had a negative impact on scholarly publishing.
s can serve to increase the volatility of subscription prices throughout the world. For example, many of the publishers of scientific journals are in Europe
and do not set prices in United States dollar
s, so the prices of such scholarly journals in the United States vary in relation to exchange rate fluctuations.
) or purchasing single articles from commercial document suppliers instead of subscribing to whole journals. Additionally, academic and research libraries cancel subscriptions to the least used or least cost-effective journals. Another tactic has been converting from printed to electronic copies of journals, however, publishers sometimes charge more for the online edition of a journal, and price increases for online journals have followed the same inflationary pattern as have journals in paper format. Many individual libraries have joined co-operative consortia that negotiate license terms for journal subscriptions on behalf of their member institutions. Another tactic has been to encourage various methods of obtaining free access to journals.
Open access journal
s where the reader of a journal or the library at their institution does not need to pay a subscription or a pay per-view charge to read the articles published in that journal. This free access is achieved through a number of basic models. First is the publication fee model in which a funding agency, a university, or the author(s) of an article pays a publication fee per article to ensure that it will be available to readers free of charge. Sometimes these journals will waive the publication fee if the author cannot pay. Secondly, some open access journals receive institutional subsidies or are grant funded, which makes it unnecessary for the journal to charge publication or subscription fees. This reliance on money from interested parties could conceivably lead to journals being forced to follow the agenda of the funding agency or government and thus may compromise editorial independence; however, much of the research conducted and submitted to scholarly journals throughout the world is funded by the aforementioned interested parties. A third model is for publications to be funded by advertisements if readership of the journal is sufficient to recoup costs.
Hybrid open access journal
s are traditional subscription-based journals that permit authors to pay a fee to make their article available free of charge to the reader. This gives the author the advantages of open access to their published research but subscribers continue to pay subscription fees for such journals to gain access to the restricted content. This model has been adopted by many of the commercial publishers and large scholarly societies. It has the potential to increase revenues for the publisher, while at the same time subjecting libraries to continuing price inflation. This model doesn't serve to end the serials crisis—unless the subscription price for a hybrid journal should decline in some fashion related to the proportion of the journal that has become open access. Oxford University Press
announced on July 25, 2007 price reductions for 2008 calendar year online-only subscriptions for its "Oxford Open Journals", however, in many cases these subscription prices are still higher than 2007 calendar year subscriptions. The price reductions are only a reduction compared with the price Oxford University Press would have charged in the absence of Open Access content. Springer Verlag has outlined its intention to develop pricing based on changes in the proportion of Open Choice (TM) articles as compared to the subscription model articles, Hypothetically, this model could serve as an intermediary step in a switch to the widescale adoption of the open access journal model.
Delayed open access journal
s are traditional subscription-based journals that provide open access after an embargo
period from the initial publication date. A subscription or an article purchase would be required to read the materials before the end of this embargo period. These journals may additionally deposit their publications in open repositories. Many scholarly society journals have adopted this model. While this model increases access to scholarly research literature for many, academic and research libraries that continue subscriptions end up paying for access to a rolling file of the most recent material of the embargo
period only.
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
. The prices of these institutional or library subscriptions have been rising much faster than the Consumer Price Index
Consumer price index
A consumer price index measures changes in the price level of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The CPI, in the United States is defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as "a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of...
for several decades, while the funds available to the libraries have remained static or have declined in real terms. As a result, academic and research libraries have regularly canceled serial subscriptions to accommodate price increases of the remaining current subscriptions.
Rising subscription prices
The subscription prices of scholarly journals have been increasing at a rate faster than the inflation rateInflation rate
In economics, the inflation rate is a measure of inflation, the rate of increase of a price index . It is the percentage rate of change in price level over time. The rate of decrease in the purchasing power of money is approximately equal.The inflation rate is used to calculate the real interest...
for several decades. This chronic inflation is caused by several factors. Each journal title publishes unique research findings and as a result is a unique commodity that cannot be replaced in an academic library collection by another journal title, such as a less expensive journal on the same subject, as one could with commodities. The publisher thus has the ability to act as a monopolist. Scholarly journals vary greatly in quality as do the individual articles that they publish. The highest quality journals are often expected and demanded by scholars to be included in their institution's library collections, often with little regard or knowledge about the subscription costs. Traditional metrics for quality in scholarly journals include Impact Factor and Citation count as recorded by Journal Citation Reports. This leads to a price inelasticity
Price elasticity of demand
Price elasticity of demand is a measure used in economics to show the responsiveness, or elasticity, of the quantity demanded of a good or service to a change in its price. More precisely, it gives the percentage change in quantity demanded in response to a one percent change in price...
for these higher quality journals.
Publishers
Another possible set of factors in this situation includes the increasing domination of scholarly communication by a small number of commercial publishers, whose journals are more costly than those of academic societies. However, the institutional subscription prices for journals published by many academic society publishers exhibit similar inflationary patterns as seen among commercial publishers.Trends in scholarly publishing
An additional problem is a dramatic increase in the volume of research literature and increasing specialization of that research, i.e. the creation of academic subfields.This includes a growth in the number of scholars and an increase in potential demand for these journals.
At the same time, funds available to purchase journals are often decreasing in real terms. Libraries
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
have seen their collection budgets decline in real terms compared to the United States Periodical Price Index. There are other library expenditures such as computers and networking equipment that have also had a negative impact on scholarly publishing.
Currency
Currency exchange rateExchange rate
In finance, an exchange rate between two currencies is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another. It is also regarded as the value of one country’s currency in terms of another currency...
s can serve to increase the volatility of subscription prices throughout the world. For example, many of the publishers of scientific journals are in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and do not set prices in United States dollar
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
s, so the prices of such scholarly journals in the United States vary in relation to exchange rate fluctuations.
Solutions, alternatives and developments
There is much discussion among case librarians and scholars about the crisis and how to address its consequences. Academic and research libraries are resorting to several tactics to contain costs, while maintaining access to the latest scholarly research for their users. These tactics include: increasingly borrowing journals from one another (see interlibrary loanInterlibrary loan
Interlibrary loan is a service whereby a user of one library can borrow books or receive photocopies of documents that are owned by another library...
) or purchasing single articles from commercial document suppliers instead of subscribing to whole journals. Additionally, academic and research libraries cancel subscriptions to the least used or least cost-effective journals. Another tactic has been converting from printed to electronic copies of journals, however, publishers sometimes charge more for the online edition of a journal, and price increases for online journals have followed the same inflationary pattern as have journals in paper format. Many individual libraries have joined co-operative consortia that negotiate license terms for journal subscriptions on behalf of their member institutions. Another tactic has been to encourage various methods of obtaining free access to journals.
Open Access
Developed in part as a response to the serials crisis, Open access (publishing) models have included new models of financing scholarly journals that may serve to reduce the monopoly power of scholarly journal publishers which is considered a contributing factor to the creation of the serials crisis. These include:Open access journal
Open access journal
Open access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author.Subsidized journals...
s where the reader of a journal or the library at their institution does not need to pay a subscription or a pay per-view charge to read the articles published in that journal. This free access is achieved through a number of basic models. First is the publication fee model in which a funding agency, a university, or the author(s) of an article pays a publication fee per article to ensure that it will be available to readers free of charge. Sometimes these journals will waive the publication fee if the author cannot pay. Secondly, some open access journals receive institutional subsidies or are grant funded, which makes it unnecessary for the journal to charge publication or subscription fees. This reliance on money from interested parties could conceivably lead to journals being forced to follow the agenda of the funding agency or government and thus may compromise editorial independence; however, much of the research conducted and submitted to scholarly journals throughout the world is funded by the aforementioned interested parties. A third model is for publications to be funded by advertisements if readership of the journal is sufficient to recoup costs.
Hybrid open access journal
Hybrid Open Access journal
A newly popular variation on open access journals is the Hybrid Open Access Journal. This refers to a journal where only some of the articles are open access...
s are traditional subscription-based journals that permit authors to pay a fee to make their article available free of charge to the reader. This gives the author the advantages of open access to their published research but subscribers continue to pay subscription fees for such journals to gain access to the restricted content. This model has been adopted by many of the commercial publishers and large scholarly societies. It has the potential to increase revenues for the publisher, while at the same time subjecting libraries to continuing price inflation. This model doesn't serve to end the serials crisis—unless the subscription price for a hybrid journal should decline in some fashion related to the proportion of the journal that has become open access. Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
announced on July 25, 2007 price reductions for 2008 calendar year online-only subscriptions for its "Oxford Open Journals", however, in many cases these subscription prices are still higher than 2007 calendar year subscriptions. The price reductions are only a reduction compared with the price Oxford University Press would have charged in the absence of Open Access content. Springer Verlag has outlined its intention to develop pricing based on changes in the proportion of Open Choice (TM) articles as compared to the subscription model articles, Hypothetically, this model could serve as an intermediary step in a switch to the widescale adoption of the open access journal model.
Delayed open access journal
Delayed open access journal
Delayed open access journals are traditional subscription-based journals that provide open access or free access upon the elapse of an embargo period following the initial publication date...
s are traditional subscription-based journals that provide open access after an embargo
Embargo (academic publishing)
In academic publishing, an embargo is a period during which access is not allowed to certain types of users. The purpose of this is to protect the revenue of the publisher.Various types exist:* A moving wall is a fixed period of months or years...
period from the initial publication date. A subscription or an article purchase would be required to read the materials before the end of this embargo period. These journals may additionally deposit their publications in open repositories. Many scholarly society journals have adopted this model. While this model increases access to scholarly research literature for many, academic and research libraries that continue subscriptions end up paying for access to a rolling file of the most recent material of the embargo
Embargo (academic publishing)
In academic publishing, an embargo is a period during which access is not allowed to certain types of users. The purpose of this is to protect the revenue of the publisher.Various types exist:* A moving wall is a fixed period of months or years...
period only.
External links
- Open Access Overview Peter Suber
- The Post-Gutenberg Galaxy: How to Get There from Here Stevan Harnad
- Electronic journals and scholarly communication: a citation and reference study Stephen P. Harter and Hak Joon Kim
- Electronic Publishing in Science International Council of Scientific Unions/UNESCO
- New Horizons in Scholarly Communication Librarians Association of the University of California
- Tragic Loss or Good Riddance? The Impending Demise of Traditional Scholarly Journals Andrew M. Odlyzko
- In Oldenburg’s Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing, Jean-Claude Guédon
- The Library 'Doomsday Machine' Ann Okerson and Kendon Stubbs
- The Crisis in Scholarly Publishing University of Waterloo (Canada) Scholarly Societies Project
- Bridging the Gap Between Traditional and Electronic Scholarly Publishing Jerry Willis
- The Serials Crisis A White Paper for the UNC-Chapel Hill Scholarly Communications Convocation, Judith M. Panitch and Sarah Michalak, January, 2005
- U.S Periodical Prices -2005 American Library Association