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The Economics of Scientific Publication Journal of Economic Methodology 9:3, 265±273 2002 The economics of scienti®c publication: Introduction Esther-MirjamSent and Arjo Klamer Abstract Whereasmethodological discussions of scienti® c publicationfrequently occurin an institutional vacuum, in the sense that they take little account of the processwhereby scienti® c contributionsare published,this symposium illuminates theurgency of focusing on theincreased dominance of commercialconsiderations inscienti® c publicationin particular and science in general. It stresses the importanceof embarking upon a multi-disciplinaryevaluation that starts from acontextualperspective, looks at developments in sciences other than just economics,and goes beyond attributing everything to technologicalchanges. Keywords: publishing,science, serials crisis, monograph crisis, economics of science Publish or perish ...perhaps the realityof the academicrat raceis not quite as grimas suggested bythis clicheÂ,but publishing does constitute animportant activityin our scienti®c lives.As the same time, the world of publishing shows astark contrast between surplus and shortage. Eachyear publishers begin new monograph series yetthe libraries areunable to accommodate the increasing supply. Some publishers arecutting back whileothers enthusias- ticallyembrace whichever book proposal makes it their way.Many manu- scripts ®nd eagerpurchasers in Asia whileAmerican and European academics’ budgets do not allowthem to buy these books. Scientists seeking journal outlets for their research arewitnessing anincrease in publishing possibilities. At the same time, their piles of articles to be read arecluttering their o ces in amore and more alarmingmanner. Moreover, librarians’ budgets arenot growingat the same pace asthe number and prices of journals. Whereas methodological discussions of scienti®c publication frequently occur in aninstitutional vacuum, in the sense that they take little account of the process whereby scienti®c contributions arepublished, this mini- symposium illuminates the urgency of focusing on the increased dominance of commercial considerations in scienti®c publication in particular and science in general.The developments outlined abovehave given rise to the so-called serials and monograph crises. The former refers to the mismatch between journal prices and librarybudgets. The latter describes decreased Journalof Economic Methodology ISSN 1350-178Xprint/ ISSN 1469-9427online # 2002Taylor & FrancisLtd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI:10.1080/ 1350178022000015096 266 Articles publishing possibilities for academicbooks aswellas anincreased focus on pro®t-making. And these developments area re¯ection of wider changes that havebeen occurring in the generalstructure, organization, and funding of science. Before discussing these changes, let us illustrate the mounting strains and tensions within the world of scienti®c publication through afew stories. Consider the ¯urry of lawsuits ®led bythe Gordon and Breach Publishing Group againstthe American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society. The litigation concerned the rights of professional societies, who are themselves publishers, to prepare and print comparative price datafor journals. The trouble started when Henry Barschall,a physics professor at the University of Wisconsin atMadison, conducted astudy comparing the prices of physics journals that appeared in both PhysicsToday (Barschall 1988),which is the journal of the American Institute of Physics, and the Bulletinof the American Physical Society (Barschalland Arrington 1988), which, asits name suggests, is published under auspices of the American PhysicalSociety. Barschall’sstudy found that the journals published by Gordon and Breach had the highest averagecost per character aswell as the highest averageratio of cost to impact. It concluded that journals of scienti®c societies, such asthe American Institute of Physics and the American PhysicalSociety, aremore cost-e ective than those of commercial publishers. Gordon and Breach® led alawsuitcharging a ¯awedmethodol- ogy,a skewed choice of journals, and incomplete research. Alower court dismissed the case,ruling that the two societies appearingas defendants in the lawsuithad not engagedin unfair competition. Afederal appeals court upheld the decision, based on the argument that the articles were constitutionally protected free speech. This wasnot the end of the societies’ legalhassles, for Gordon and Breach also ®led lawsuits chargingfalse comparative advertising in countries in which this is illegal,namely Germany, Switzerland, and France.The cases were dismissed in Germany and Switzerland, but the one in France isstill pending the settlement of the estate of Henry Barschall,who passed awayamidst allthe legalbattles. The plot thickens when it was discovered that Gordon and Breach had used stationary belonging to the Foundation for International Scienti®c Cooperation for asurveysent to university libraries askingthem whether they had canceled journal subscrip- tions because of Barschall’sreports. This prompted the Association of Research Libraries to send amemorandum to its members informing them that the surveycould be used to assess damagesfor future litigation. In fact, the Association had itself issued areport on journal prices in which Gordon and Breach publications were found to be among the most expensive. Yet, the result of the publisher’s actions and threats has been to deter librarians and others from engagingin additional analysesof the costs of scholarly journals. For instance, libel lawsuitthreats issued byGordon and Breach led the American Mathematical Society to exclude Gordon and Breach from several of its surveys of the costs for mathematical journals. When the society did Theeconomics of scienti®c publication 267 include the publisher’s numbers in one of the surveys that appeared in Notices oftheAmerican Mathematical Society ,Gordon and Breach,as wemay expect bynow, demanded aretraction and investigated litigation possibilities. It went asfar ascriticizing the results in atwo-page advertisement with the heading `AMS Continues Gross Distortions in Surveys; Abrogates Agreement with Gordon and Breach’(Gordon and Breach 1990). Now, the previous story is certainly not anisolated aair, for it is easyto ®nd other stories such asthe following. The playersin this one areElsevier, the Association for LogicProgramming, and the Journalof LogicProgramming (Bergstra 2000;Birman 2000).Upon its foundation in 1986,the Association for LogicProgramming adopted the then 2-year-old Journalof Logic Programming ,which waspublished byElsevier, as its `house journal’. In the beginning libraries paid $0.28per pagefor their subscription; by1999 this price had gone up to $0.88per page(Birman 2000).While the consumer price index increased roughly 44per cent over the period of adecade, the price charged to libraries went up about 158per cent over the same period. This prompted Krzysztof Apt, the president of the Association for LogicPro- gramming,and Maurice Bruynooghe, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of LogicProgramming ,to enter into negotiations with Elsevierover the price of librarysubscriptions. Elsevierdid not renege, arguingthat it o ers libraries attractivepackage deals and manyadditional services. The 16-month negotiations came to anabrupt end when Bruynooghe resigned aseditor- in-chief and wasfollowed bythe entire ®fty-member editorial board. Theyall moved to CambridgeUniversity Press to found anew house journal for the Association for LogicProgramming, Theoryand Practice of LogicProgram- ming,with asubscription price of 45per cent of the old price. Elsevier continued its journal under anew name, Journalof Logic and Algebraic Programming ,and with anew editorial team. It then accused the Association for LogicProgramming of frustrating its attempts to keep the journal going bydiscouraging its members from joining the editorial board. In a®naltwist to this narrative,the 2000P± A± M Award of the Physics±Astronomy± Mathematics Division of the Special Libraries Association recognized Bruynooghe, his editorial board, and the Association for LogicProgramming for acknowledging the problems that increasing journal costs cause for both libraries and scholars, and for taking steps within their own scholarly community to e ect positive change.Again, this story is not anisolated incident. In 1999,the editor and editorial board of EvolutionaryEcology , a journal published byKluwer, resigned to start EvolutionaryEcology Research , which became solely their intellectual and ®nancialresponsibility (Rosenzweig 1999). EvolutionaryEcology was® rst published in 1984by Chapman & Hall,with Michael Rosenzweig asits originator aswell as editor-in-chief. In 1987,Chapman &Hallsu ered ahostile takeover bythe International Thomson Corporation. Elevenyears later, the publisher wassold to Kluwer. 268 Articles All along,the hapless editor watched the subscription price of his brainchild goup and up. Rosenzweig (1999)estimated that in1998the cost of producing and distributing EvolutionaryEcology wasless than $80,000,whereas subscription revenues were somewhere between $250,000and $300,000, amounting to a275per cent markup, or a73.3per cent pro®t margin. Rosenzweig decided that enough wasenough and beggedand pleaded with Kluwer to sell the journal to auniversity press, but to no avail.The editor and his editorial board decided to jump ship and start EvolutionaryEcology Research,with the support of SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
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