[OAI-eprints] ALPSP Library Survey on Self-archiving and Journal Cancellation

[Stevan Harnad]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:29:16 +0000
From: Leslie Carr <lac at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: Mark Ware <subs at MARKWARECONSULTING.COM>
Cc: "Sally Morris (ALPSP)" <sally.morris at alpsp.org>, LIS-ELIB at JISCMAIL.AC.UK,
     Brown M.L. <M.L.Brown at soton.ac.uk>,
     Bill Hubbard <Bill.Hubbard at nottingham.ac.uk>,
     Alma Swan <a.swan at talk21.com>, Derek Law <d.law at strath.ac.uk>,
     Stevan Harnad <harnad at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: ALPSP library survey

Your "ALPSP Library Survey on Self-archiving and Journal  
Cancellation" looks very interesting, and I look forward to the  
information that it will bring out. (However, if librarians are only  
a part of the cancellation process, I hope that the questionnaire  
will be addressed to the academics and others who also share  
responsibility for these decisions.)

I have an important question about the structure of the  
questionnaire. Pages 2, 3, 4, 6 are qualified by statements "If you  
think X is a cancellation factor..." whereas the delayed access  
embargo question (page 5) has no such qualification (how short does  
an embargo have to be before you feel that a separate subscription is  
unnecessary). Embargoes are a contentious part of the Open Access  
landscape at the moment, so it is unfortunate that the questionnaire  
in its current form is simply begging the question it is apparently  
attempting to answer.

Also, the key Open Access question (Q19 If you do NOT consider the  
immediate free availability of content on open access archives a good  
reason in itself to cancel a journal, why not?) may be accidentally  
skipped over, due to the respondents' experience from pages 2 & 3 of  
skipping to the next page to find the next relevant question.  
Certainly, I missed out those crucial questions on my first run  
through the questionnaire, and I was looking for them! Perhaps you  
could simply add the further instruction "if not, proceed to question  
19 *at the bottom of this page*" at the top of the page.
---
Les Carr

On 9 Jan 2006, at 10:03, Mark Ware wrote:

> Dear Librarian
> ALPSP (the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers,
> www.alpsp.org) would like your kind assistance with a survey  
> addressing the
> possible impact of pre-print archives on journals.
>
> As you may be aware, some publishers are becoming concerned that if
> self-archiving of postprints, or even preprints, of journal  
> articles becomes
> sufficiently widespread, this may lead to a decline in usage at  
> journals'
> own websites, and that this in turn may lead to cancellations. In  
> order to
> understand whether or not our fears are well-founded, we would like to
> understand more about the process by which you make the decision to  
> cancel
> journals, what the crucial factors are, and how you would rank them in
> importance, both now and in the future.
>
> We would be extremely grateful if you could spare a little time to  
> complete
> this survey to help us reach a better understanding of the  
> situation. We
> shall make the aggregated results of the survey publicly available  
> as a
> contribution to this debate. (Individual responses will of course  
> remain
> anonymous.) To complete the survey, please click on this link:
> 	http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=960811615855
>
> Thank you in advance for your help with this.
>
> Regards
>  -Mark Ware (on behalf of ALPSP)
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Mark Ware Consulting Ltd
> T:  +44 (0)117 959 3726
> E:  mark at markwareconsulting.com
> W: www.markwareconsulting.com