From: Colin Steele <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 9:11 PM
I would agree with the comments below, and those of Joe and Charles.
The main responsibility of the big 5 publishers is to their
shareholders and reducing profits would surely not be their first
priority. Best Colin
******
22 January 2015 | By Paul Jump
Journal prices could rise further if Springer-Macmillan deal goes
ahead, some fear
Librarians have warned that the merger between Macmillan Science and
Education and Springer, announced last week, could result in even
higher journal prices.
According to Springer’s website, its nearly 3,000 journals published
more than 325,000 articles in 2014. Macmillan has only about 160
journals, which, according to its press office, published some 15,000
papers. But these include the prestigious Nature series of journals.
Macmillan also includes the Palgrave Macmillan publishing house.
According to Stefanie Haustein, a postdoctoral researcher at the
University of Montreal, Springer and Macmillan combined published 13
per cent of all papers indexed in Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science
between 2009 and 2013, compared with 23 per cent by Elsevier, the
market leader.
Phil Sykes, university librarian at the University of Liverpool, said:
“History suggests that mergers like this are bad news for
universities, because they further increase the power of publishers in
a market that already conspicuously lacks a competitive dynamic.”
David Prosser, executive director of Research Libraries UK, pointed
out that of the 15 largest publishers identified in a 2002 Office of
Fair Trading report, mergers and acquisitions meant that only nine
remain.
“Mergers always seem to result in prices being harmonised upwards,” he
said. “Nature Publishing Group has been very aggressive in the last
few years with price rises, and the real worry is that the new entity
will be as aggressive across the whole range of its titles.”
He also warned that mergers mean that “big deals” – multi-year
contracts for publishers’ entire electronic catalogues – get bigger,
reducing libraries’ budget flexibility and potentially squeezing
smaller publishers out when cuts have to be made.
Last week, Tilburg University in the Netherlands announced the
cancellation of its subscriptions to the prestigious journals Science
and Nature, citing budgetary pressure and an inability to cancel big
deals.
The OFT report concluded that while there was “evidence” that the
science journal market was not “working well”, it hoped that “market
forces” might “remedy the problems”, particularly given the move to
digital publishing.
But Mr Sykes said that the Springer-Macmillan merger was further
evidence that this was a “wildly optimistic prognosis”. Dr Prosser
said that he would ask both UK and continental competition authorities
to scrutinise the merger, and hoped they would undertake a wider
investigation of the entire journal market
*******
On Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 3:37 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 04:05:12 +0000
>
> I will have to agree with Joe. This will never result in lower prices
> to libraries. In addition in my personal opinion it is culturally
> likely to result in shell shock for the employees of the two companies
> in terms of cultural and every day expectations of what each values. I
> can't speak highly enough of the quality of Springer book decision
> making while I detest their sales model.
>
> On Springer journals end, they don't measure for the most part up to
> Nature's stable in terms of quality. But all springer journals
> together do not cost much different than Nature's smaller list of
> elite titles. Derk Haank is a bit of a magician but I suspect the
> culture clash will take more than 3 years to remediate
>
> Chuck
>
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:04:22 -0500
>
> Does anyone really believe that this merger will result in LOWER costs
> to libraries????
>
> And as for the notion that the two companies will continue to operate
> autonomously, I would be astounded if that proved to be true. The
> point of a merger is to merge.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 8:55 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > From: Colin Steele <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 4:42 PM
> >
> > http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/springer-nature-dea
> > l-sign-of-times/story-e6frgcjx-1227187481600?nk=4c5503e7bb13693a21db
> > c4cfbf6b1104
> >
> > by: ANDREW TROUNSON
> > From: The Australian
> > January 19, 2015 12:00AM
> >
> > Andrew Trounson
> > Higher Education Reporter
> > Melbourne
> >
> > THE merger of scholarly publishing giant Springer with the publisher
> > of leading academic journal Nature, is the latest sign of the
> > disruption facing scholarly publishing in the face of online
> > technology and the growing pressure for journals to provide free
> > access to research papers.
> >
> > The incorporation of the Nature suite of journals will give Springer
> > a big boost in prestige compared with rival giants such as Elsevier,
> > Wiley and Taylor & Francis. Macmillan Science and Education, which
> > owns Nature and is proposing to merge with Springer, only produces
> > about 160 scientific journals, well behind sector leader Elsevier
> > with 3,057. But in Nature it has arguably the biggest single journal brand.
> > Springer has 2,987 titles, putting it second behind Elsevier, but if
> > the merger goes through it will be the biggest, just.
> >
> > The proposed merger still needs clearance from European competition
> > regulators and academic libraries have been quick to voice concerns
> > that they could be squeezed by the reduction in competition. But
> > there is also optimism that the merger will bring efficiencies that
> > can be passed on to libraries in the form of lower subscription costs.
> >
> > “We are continually becoming more efficient and are expect the
> > publishers to also take some of the hard yards they need to rather
> > than expect us to simply keep paying more,” said Philip Kent, the
> > University of Melbourne’s library head. Mr Kent is also chairman of
> > the Council of Australian University Librarian’s journal purchasing
> > consortium. He noted that the weak Australian dollar, which has
> > declined steeply since September, is significantly increasing costs
> > for university libraries.
> >
> > Mr Kent welcomed the fact that both Springer and Macmillan were
> > quality publishers, suggesting there was no reason to worry that
> > quality could be put at risk from the merger. “They are both quality
> > publishers and we have had good dealings with both of them,” he said.
> >
> > Aidan Byrne, chief executive of the Australian Research Council,
> > said the proposed merger continues a long trend of publishers
> > seeking to get bigger through mergers. He said a key question will
> > be whether they may be some centralisation of how the often
> > autonomous journals in the enlarged stable are run. “My guess is
> > that they will stay fairly autonomous.”
> >
> > In a stock market research note Exane BNP Paribas said “the players
> > are two of the largest scientific publishers and in our view the
> > merger will create significant cost synergies and make their journal
> > collection more ‘must have’ for university libraries.”
> >
> > “Nature’s smaller, very high quality journal portfolio will
> > complement Springer’s wider, lower impact factor portfolio,” it said.
> >
> > [SNIP]
> >
> > Selective belt tightening: Journal publisher Springer’s merger with
> > Nature publisher Macmillan looks to be a defensive move, securing
> > the high profile journal when the future of academIc publishing is
> > looking decidedly shaky. But will the merger deliver economies of
> > scale that can be passed on to the libraries? As Melbourne
> > University library head Phillip Kent points out, there’s been a lot
> > of belt tightening in recent times and it would be nice to see the
> > journal publishing giants cutting back on costs and passing them on.
> > Given the merger is the first step to an ultimate plan to sell the
> > business on a stock market, HW suspects Mr Kent is dreaming.
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------
> >
> > Colin Steele
> > Emeritus Fellow
> > ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences The Australian National
> > University Acton, ACT, 2601 Australia
> > E: [log in to unmask]
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