From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2015 19:58:31 +0000

Dear Rick,

It depends what you mean by operating at a loss I am afraid.

It is a problem that impacts on all publishers not just not for
profits. You can for example argue that a journal that is well thought
of in the discipline but is in a small sub discipline will never make
a real profit/surplus if one allocates overheads ruthlessly but if it
is part of an important programme and needs nothing or little in the
way of specific marketing let it continue.

My impression is that even commercial publishers change their views on
what to do with such journals from time to time and are sometimes
tougher than at other times. Some learned societies do terminate
journals. Some commercial publishers try an open access model. There
are all sort of permutations.

I would also suggest that most journals lists are carried by a few
highly profitable journals while the rest contribute little. This is
true for commercial and for not-for-profits. I have headed up journals
in both categories.

Anthony

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2015 15:50:28 +0000

Dear Collective Wisdom,

I recently heard a presentation by a learned-society officer who
mentioned, in passing, that many society and non-profit scholarly
publishers are operating some or all of their journals at a loss. This
took me a bit by surprise; I’ve never doubted that there are scholarly
journals out there not earning their keep financially (and being kept
afloat for purposes of mission rather than revenue), but I got the
impression that there may be more of these out there than I thought.

Has anyone studied this? Is there data out there on the
number/percentage of scholarly journals that are subsidized by their
host organizations rather than generating a surplus for them?

Thanks in advance for any leads on this.

---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections Marriott Library,
University of Utah [log in to unmask]