From: Sally Morris <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:36:58 +0100

There are no accurate estimates for the global value of the total scholarly
journals market (believe me, I've looked!).  In 2010 Simba estimated the
market for English-language journals in STM (the largest sector) at
$8.147bn.  This is pretty small in the overall scheme of things - in the
same year the market for chocolate and confectionery in the UK alone was
approx $7.72bn, according to KeyNote!

Sally Morris
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK  BN13 3UU
Email:  [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:23:00 -0700

This is all very helpful.  And it supports the view that no number about
publishing can be taken at face value.

Now for another number:  Where in the world does that $19 billion figure for
worldwide STM journal sales come from?  That's a huge number.  What could
possibly be in there?  Add up the journals businesses at Wiley, Elsevier,
Springer, T&F--and throw in Kluwer, Sage, ACS, and some others, and you
don't get near that figure, or near 50% of that figure.

Joe Esposito


On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 2:54 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Sean Andrews <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:23:17 -0500
>
> On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Joe Esposito wrote:
>
> > From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 20:33:00 -0700
> >
> > Nothing new in this article for members of this list, but rather
> > surprising for its length.
> >
> > Can anyone untangle the numbers?  Harvard's journals budget looks
incredibly low.
>
> The $3.75 million is just a subset of the subscriptions (coming from
> "certain publishers") which they claim have risen especially high in
> recent years.  I can't figure the difference between "current serials"
> and "electronic serials" in the NCES database - and Harvard only has
> one year of numbers for e-serials (2010: $8.5 million) -  but
> according to the most recent numbers,  "Current Serials (which are for
> 2010, the year cited as the baseline, so not as much help) rose
> sharply and suddenly.  On the other hand, it appears they were getting
> a good bit more for their money overall. Middle number here is
> "Current serials" expenditures; bottom number is "current serials
> held"
>
> 2000 - $8,533,502 - 190,528
>
> 2002 - $9,735,872 - 106,869
>
> 2004 - $10,497,758 - 100,009
>
> 2006 - $9,911.521 - 98,988
>
> 2008 - $9,248,115 - 110,628
>
> 2010 - $15, 233,300 - 157854
>
> So certainly these were cheaper in 2000, but since then both the price
> and the number of serials has held steady, till 2010 when they bought
> about 40% more and paid about 60% more.  Again, this is for the period
> immediately preceding the baseline.  Not sure of the overall budget
> today.
>
> > Also, 50% of all journals are published by a small number of commercial
publishers?  50% of the dollars, perhaps, but 50% of the titles?
>
> No you are right: it is likely dollars. It is a misreading of the
> source (handily linked and open access), which states that:
>
> > Worldwide, the scientific, technical, and medical (STM) segment of
> > the academic journal publishing industry generates a little more
> > than $19 billion in revenue, with the top ten publishers accounting
> > for approximately 43% of that revenue, according to a recent market
> > research report referenced by Library Journal
>
> It appears that both this and the LJ stat are specific to the STM
> field.  Though in that field, the article goes on to claim that,
> "Three giants dominate: Reed Elsevier, Springer and Wiley.  Estimates
> indicate that these three account for approximately 42% of all journal
> articles published."  But the citation for this is a report issued in
> 2002 by Morgan Stanley (i.e. now 10 years ago) on Reed's profitability
> and, so far as I can tell, it makes little mention of Springer.  So
> not sure where they got that number.
>
> Sean Johnson Andrews
> [log in to unmask]
> Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies Columbia College, Chicago
> 2011-2013 ACLS Public Fellow
> Program Officer
> The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education