From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 10:54:38 -0500

Many university presses in the US are units of public universities,
and their financial records should therefore be publicly accessible.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 08:58:15 +0000
>
> Elsevier's revenues and profits are a matter of public record.  It is
> hard to see how open access advocates, or others, can be ill-informed
> on this.
>
> Joe claims to know "of many publishers (professional societies and
> university presses) that lose money on journals".  But wouldn't it be
> better to base this discussion on publicly available data rather than
> anecdote?
>
> Way, way back in 2004 ALPSP and Blackwell (as was) surveyed
> journal-owning societies.  Two-thirds made a surplus and the mean
> surplus was 15%.  (Although I would note that there were only 68
> respondents and the responses may well be skewed towards larger
> societies who have a better understanding of their finances and the
> time to respond to surveys.)  It looks as if the report is only
> available to ALSPS members:
>
> https://www.alpsp.org/reports-publications/what-do-societies-do-with-their-publishing-surpluses-alpsp-and-blackwell-survey-2004/125790
>
> I don't know if there have been more recent comparable studies
>
> David
>
>
>
> On 9 Aug 2017, at 21:07, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2017 21:03:17 -0400
>
> I don't know what Hindawi's finances look like, but if they indeed
> have a 50% margin, more power to them. But let't not overlook that
> Hindawi is an open access publisher. High margins at H, if they indeed
> have them, thus cannot be due to a monopoly or the sale of
> aggregations.
>
> In general, I find discussions of publishing not to be anchored in
> evidence. That doesn't mean that the positions of OA advocates are
> wrong; it simply means that they are ill-informed.
>
> Joe Esposito