Tim O'Reilly's predictions are not borne out by our experience with the free, on-line-only journal, Conservation Ecology http://www.consecol.org/, now in its 6th year of publication. This rigorously peer-reviewed journal was started by an independent group of scientists at Carleton University in Ottawa. It quickly achieved a larger circulation that most of the leading journals in its field, and is now recognized by inclusion in the Expanded Science Citation Index and in Current Contents and Alerting Services. Its worldwide circulation continues to grow, without the involvement of any sellers, any middlemen, any retailers or wholesale aggregators. New readers discover the journal via Google and other search engines. Readers whose employers cannot afford to purchase journals, especially readers in developing countries or in smaller institutions in developed countries, are thrilled to have access to high quality research reports at no cost. (Peer review and journal administration costs are underwritten by the Resilience Alliance, a consortium of research institutions www.resalliance.org/.)
Here is some information about the distribution of its readership, from the journal's website, http://www.consecol.org/Journal/audience/index.html : "Conservation Ecology's audience is an international community of scholars and practitioners representing the natural and social sciences, business, government, and NGO's. A majority of the 11,100+ subscribers to Conservation Ecology are affiliated with academic institutions, but a substantial portion (31%) represent commercial organizations, and 4% of subscribers represent non-profit organizations. Of the approximately 3250 subscribers in the United States 17% are affiliated with government organizations. "With subscribers in 108 countries and many more regular "unsubscribed" readers of the journal, Conservation Ecology is not only bridging disciplines and facilitating communication among researchers and policy makers, but also providing a mechanism for more international perspectives to be shared. Of the subscribers for which we have country of residence information, nearly two-thirds hail from North America (U.S.A. 45%, Canada 11%), the remaining third is will distributed around the world (Western Europe 13%, Latin America 11%, Australasia 8%, Scandinavia 3%, Central/Northern Asia 2%, South East Asia 2%, South West Asia 1%, Africa 2%, Eastern Europe 2%, and the Caribbean 0.5%). The Southern Hemisphere is well represented among our subscribers (19%). Conservation Ecology currently has subscribers in over 50 developing countries. Easy and rapid international access to the journal is provided by mirror sites in Sweden and South Africa. "There are also many regular readers of Conservation Ecology who are not registered subscribers. Conservation Ecology website receives an average of 140,000 successful requests for pages per month. Web Server Statistics for Conservation Ecology indicate that in 2001 the journal has served requests from over 70,000 distinct hosts, suggesting a much broader audience than is revealed by our list of subscribers alone. "Although a subscription to Conservation Ecology is not required for full access to the journal, subscription is free" At 02:27 PM 12/12/2002 Thursday -0500, Arthur P. Smith wrote: >By the way, Tim O'Reilly (of O'Reilly software book publishing fame) has >an interesting article up on very related issues in the book publishing >business (and music publishing, movies, and other forms): > > http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/11/piracy.html > >Some quotes: ............. >"Publishing is not a role that will be undone by any new technology, >since its existence is mandated by mathematics. Millions of buyers and >millions of sellers cannot find one another without one or more >middlemen who, like a kind of step-down transformer, segment the market >into more manageable pieces. In fact, there is usually a rich ecology of >middlemen. Publishers aggregate authors for retailers [or libraries]. >Retailers aggregate customers for publishers. Wholesalers aggregate >small publishers for retailers and small retailers for publishers. [etc.]" ............. >"Free" is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lee N. Miller Managing Editor Emeritus Conservation Ecology http://www.consecol.org