ALPSP has carried out a second major study of the policies and practices of 400 international academic journal publishers, both not-for-profit and commercial, drawn from the memberships of ALPSP and other major publishing associations. A response rate of 55% was achieved (including all the major publishers), providing hard evidence of the significant changes in publishing policy and practice that have been made since the first survey was undertaken in 2003.

Authors:
    John Cox, John Cox Associates
    Laura Cox, Frontline Global Marketing Services Ltd

ISBN 978-0-907341-32-1
64 pages, paperback, 297 x 145mm
Publication: June 2006

ALPSP members: print copies @ £55/$99/€125 per copy

The PDF is free to ALPSP Members to download from the link below. 
(NB Members will need to log in to access the link. Email info@alpsp.org if you do not have a username and password)

Non-members: print and PDF copies @ £95/$175/€220 per copy

Press Release [PDF] (2 June 2006)     Executive Summary [PDF]

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The report is a goldmine of evidence about the policies and practices of scholarly journal publishers. It is invaluable to all those who want to understand or explain to others what publishers actually do, and who want to dispel some of the misunderstandings that have been voiced in both academic and political circles. 

Key findings include:

• Publishers continue to make more content available online - 90% of journals are now online, compared with 75% in 2003.


• The number of journals continues to grow.174 publishers have launched 1,048 new journal titles in the five years to 2005, averaging 6.02 per publisher, while they discontinued 185 titles, averaging 1.06 each.


• The availability of back issues online has increased by 5% to 91% in 2005. Many publishers have digitised back to Volume 1 Issue 1; 47 offer online access to pre-1990 content. Continuing access to previously subscribed volumes is provided by about 60%. Access to journal back volumes is becoming an integral part of the online product; 63% of publishers provide active subscribers with access at no extra cost.


• About a fifth of publishers are experimenting with open access journals.


• Online article submission and peer review processes have been widely adopted in the last five years.
  Almost all publishers offer more content to more users via bundling and/or consortia deals; pricing models vary considerably; and many smaller publishers are now included in multi-publisher packages such as the ALPSP Learned Journals Collection.


• All categories of publishers are now extending usage rights to be 'library friendly'.


• Although most publishers still require journal authors to assign copyright, the proportion willing to accept a licence to publish has grown significantly in the past two years.

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