From: Sally Morris <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 5 May 2013 22:07:53 +0100

If we're talking about journals, the statistics I researched a few years ago
may be helpful (Mapping the journal publishing landscape: how much do we
know?  Learned Publishing 20, 299-310,2007 -
http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/095315107X239654)

At that time, it appeared from my analysis of the figures in Ulrich's that
of the 23,588 active, refereed academic/scholarly journals, about half
(11,578) were - to judge from the publisher name - nonprofit.   Perhaps
surprisingly, the nonprofit publishers were not noticeably smaller than the
commercial ones, although the 'big 5' (now 4), Elsevier, Springer, T&F,
Blackwell and Wiley published 5770 journals between them.

Hope this helps

Sally

Sally Morris
Email:  [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----

From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 3 May 2013 20:02:02 +0100

A little more history which is not I think controversial.

Before WWII German journals were central to the international scholarly
discourse and they were mostly commercial. I can give the references.

In the UK going back into the C19 before WWII most UK journals were a little
more local but some international and they were published by some commercial
publishers like Longman, Macmillan and T&F and of course CUP and OUP. All
these publishers saw journals as a sideline and not very profitable.

Many learned societies published with commercial publishers as now and
perhaps as many in terms of percentages.

The big change came with the German model coming in through the US and the
Netherlands mediated by émigrés and of course through Pergamon from the
1950s. I have been doing work on this for a book chapter.

My first employer is a good example - Academic Press. AP set up in a hotel
room in Manhattan in 1942 with Advances in Cancer Research. AP set up in
London in 1959 with Journal of Molecular Biology.

Anthony

Anthony

-----Original Message-----

From: "Guédon Jean-Claude" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 2 May 2013 03:05:02 -0400

I question this figure, Sandy. For example, the 6,000 academic journals
vetted by Latindex in Latin America are all supported by academic
institutions.

Also academic presses are not alone on the non-profit side of things:
association publications also exist, and they do not all behave like the
American Chemical Society.

I was using the example of U. presses in the US to show that, even there,
subsidies had existed until well after the 2nd WW.

Jean-Claude Guédon
Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal