From: William Park <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 10:41:22 -0700 Toby, Regarding your question: > Does anyone (STM, perhaps?) have data on journal article downloads worldwide? this is from the STM 2015 Report: "Researchers’ access to scholarly content is at an historic high. Bundling of content and the associated consortia licensing model has continued to deliver unprecedented levels of access, with annual full-text downloads estimated at 2.5 billion, and cost per download at historically low levels (well under $1 per article for many large customers)." Bill Park CEO DeepDyve > On May 1, 2016, at 4:31 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > From: <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 09:30:25 +0000 > > This is interesting, but the numbers need to be put into context > (always a good idea with numbers - to put them in context). I have no > idea, for example, how many articles are being downloaded from Science > Direct, JSTOR, or other platforms and repositories in order to gauge > whether SciHub's 28 million is 'small', 'medium' or 'large'. For what > it's worth, OECD Publishing's downloads last year were 28 million (so > we're running at around 50% of SciHub) but our catalogue is much, much > smaller - we have around 200,000 items on our platform, a far cry from > SciHub's 50 million. Does anyone (STM, perhaps?) have data on journal > article downloads worldwide? > > However, this data does support a conjecture that we have at OECD: the > potential audience is always far larger than one thinks. I recently > had one of our authors say her latest paper would have an audience of > '200' and she swore blind that it wouldn't be any larger. Based on our > past performance with similar papers, I reckon we'll reach twice or > three times that number. This thinking is quite widespread. I was > recently challenged at a conference, at which I had shared data on the > growth in accesses to our content following the introduction of our > freemium publishing model, by someone arguing that OECD content was > somehow different from scholarly content published in journals and was > bound to have a larger audience. I countered by stating that 40% of > OECD populations are now educated to first-degree level as are many in > non-OECD countries, especially in places like Iran, China and India. > Therefore, the potential audience that has the skill and ability to > read a journal article is really very large indeed. The data from > SciHub seems to be proving the point. > > The final anecdote about ease of discovery and access is sobering . . > . If we (publishers and librarians together) can't get this right, > especially at subscribing institutions, then we're failing badly. But, > this brings me back to the first point - the context of this data. > What is the share of SciHub downloads at subscribing institutions? If > it becomes significant, then we are failing, if it isn't, then we're > not. > > Toby Green > Head of Publishing > OECD