From: FrederickFriend <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 18:12:16 +0100

There are many "downsides" to the outsourcing of society journals to
the big commercial publishers, not least to the societies themselves
and their authors in preventing them from gaining the benefit of more
readers and citations of their publications through open access. It
seems as though many societies do not realise they can have a viable
business model for their journals in open access. There are good
examples of open access society journals for societies to look at and
consider for their own journals. In order to provide information to
societies about successful open access journals run by societies
Knowledge Exchange ran a workshop in collaboration with OASPA and
SPARC Europe in Tallinn in September 2011. The report on the workshop
containing key points on transition from subscription to open access
-plus some of the presentations from the successful OA society
journals - is at:

http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=431 .

Fred Friend
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:43:46 +0400

Hi All

One of the downsides of societies outsourcing this is that the
customers get stuff that they don't need, but have to pay for it.  I
have a subscription to a journal that is on paper and electronic.  But
I never read the paper version.  It arrives later than the electronic
copies are available, I can't search for stuff as easily, it takes up
space, etc. - I always only access the electronic version.  But I'm
paying for that d*mn paper and I can't get them to stop sending it to
me without cancelling my subscription.  I have contacted the society,
and they apologise, but it's out of their hands.  And publisher won't
do it.  Simply because, if the publisher allows that option, then they
have to reduce the charge.  If they reduce the charge, then they run
the risk of reducing their profits.

It's called "value added," (and value charged) whether you want that
added value or not.

So, yesterday, yet another copy of the journal arrived in its plastic
wrapping, and was added to the pile of previous copies on my desk,
still in their plastic wrapping. I offered it to a colleague, who
smiled politely, and said "Um, no thanks, already read it online."
I'm sure she wondered if I knew I was in the 21st century.

Regards

Ken


Dr. Ken Masters
Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
Medical Education Unit
College of Medicine & Health Sciences
Sultan Qaboos University
Sultanate of Oman
E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education