ARL

Promotes

Competition in Scholarly Publishing

October 30, 1997

Washington, D.C. -- Responding to the steadily increasing costs of library materials acquired from large commercial publishers and the impact of these price increases on the scholarly process, the Board of Directors of the Association of Research Libraries approved last week the formation of the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). SPARC, whose mission is to be a catalyst for change through the creation of a more competitive marketplace for research information, will promote academic values of access to information for research and teaching and encourage innovative uses of technology to improve scholarly communication.

SPARC will operate as a project of the ARL Office of Scholarly Communication and will seek partnerships with member libraries and institutions, scholarly societies, university presses, and other organizations, including publishers, that share a common set of academic values and are interested in developing new strategies for controlling costs and improving access to research information.

For over a decade, the academic library community has monitored the spiraling costs of academic research information while implementing a number of strategies to contain costs and ensure access to these expensive resources. Statistics published annually by ARL highlight the problem.

• Since 1986, the unit cost of serials has increased by 147% and that of monographs by 63%.

• Since 1986, the number of monographs purchased by ARL libraries declined by 21%.

• In 1986, the typical ARL library subscribed to 16,198 serial titles, purchased 33,210 monographs to serve 16,684 students and 1,125 faculty.

• In 1996, the typical ARL library subscribed to 15,069 serial titles, purchased 26,262 monographs to serve 18,269 students and 1,254 faculty.

• Despite canceling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of serials, research libraries are spending 124% more on serials to acquire 7% fewer titles.

Under the current system, faculty submit their research and scholarship, often conducted with the aid of public and private funds, to publishers who generally require the transfer of the author's copyrights. Publishers then sell the materials back to the academic community through subscriptions held by libraries. Increasingly, much scholarly publishing-- particularly science, technology, medicine, and law--is being consolidated into the hands of a few large commercial companies. The most recent example is the proposed merger announced last week of the British-Dutch company Reed Elsevier, with its primary competitor, Wolters Kluwer, another Dutch company, creating the world's largest publisher of academic and trade journals. These publishers had combined sales of $6.6 billion in 1996 and publish a combined total of almost 2,200 titles.

"With prices continuing to spiral and commercial publishers pursuing an aggressive strategy of acquisitions, we must take some action to ensure competition in the market-place."

"Library partnering with scholarly societies, university presses, and other educational and research organizations that can achieve the high quality expected of scholarly publishing will create an opportunity for the academic community to enrich the marketplace with publishing ventures that are affordable and respect the academic values of access to information for research and teaching."
[Duane Webster, Executive Director of ARL].

The Association of Research Libraries is a not-for-profit membership organization comprising 121 libraries of North American research institutions. Its mission is to shape and influence forces affecting the future of research libraries in the process of scholarly communication. ARL programs and services promote equitable access to and effective use of recorded knowledge in support of teaching, research, scholarship, and community service. The Association articulates the concerns of research libraries and their institutions, forges coalitions, influences information policy development, and supports innovation and improvements in research library operations. ARL operates as a forum for the exchange of ideas and as an agent for collective action.

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dr. Albert Benschop Social & Behavioral Sciences Sociology & Anthropology University of Amsterdam Published: November, 1997 Last modified: 28th December, 2005