[Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

Thu Jan 14 22:50:22 CST 2016

So, Stephen, you just recognized one of the advantages of open access: More people interact with the paper (if you do not want to believe that they read at least a little bit of it), and access to the paper is much easier. And this is bad, right? Or at least not worth the waste of $20 per page.
Good Night

Frank

Dr Frank T. Krell
Curator of Entomology 
Commissioner, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
Chair, ICZN ZooBank Committee
Department of Zoology 
Denver Museum of Nature & Science 
2001 Colorado Boulevard 
Denver, CO 80205-5798 USA 
Frank.Krell at dmns.org 
Phone: (+1) (303) 370-8244 
Fax: (+1) (303) 331-6492 
http://www.dmns.org/science/museum-scientists/frank-krell
lab page: http://www.dmns.org/krell-lab

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2016 7:43 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; Peter Uetz <peter at uetz.us>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

You can't assume that the number of views would be so high if it wasn't open access. You can't assume that the number of views is the same as the number of readers. If a paper is open access, then you can easily click on it, even just by accident, or for a quick peek for no particular reason. Also, if it is open access, then there is no need for you to download and store the file on your computer. You can click on it again every time you want to read it (or check any detail). Hence one reader might easily be responsible for 10 or more views. Besides, the papers may be "rather obscure", but the journal isn't. So, the journal attracts a lot of visits relative to a more obscure (specialised) journal. Do you really think that an article in, say for example, the New Zealand Entomologist would get anywhere near even 2000 views?

Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 15/1/16, Peter Uetz <peter at uetz.us> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
 To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
 Received: Friday, 15 January, 2016, 3:05 PM

 Stephen,

 Where do you get your “n” (reader number) from?

 Here are some randomly chosen and rather obscure papers from  Plos One ($1,495 a piece open access fee) published during  the past 5 years:

    Cryptic Speciation Patterns in Iranian  Rock Lizards Uncovered by Integrative Taxonomy
    Views: 8299 • Citations: 14 • Saves:
 44

    New Metrics for Comparison of Taxonomies  Reveal Striking Discrepancies among Species Delimitation  Methods in Madascincus Lizards
    Views: 4076 • Citations: 35 • Saves:
 106

    Evolution of Body Elongation in
 Gymnophthalmid Lizards: Relationships with Climate
    Views: 2487 • Citations: 6 • Saves:
 36

    Multi-Locus Estimates of Population
 Structure and Migration in a Fence Lizard Hybrid Zone
    Views: 3244 • Citations: 4 • Saves:
 39

    Estimating Ancestral Ranges: Testing  Methods with a Clade of Neotropical Lizards (Iguania:
 Liolaemidae)
    Views: 2819 • Citations: 1 • Saves:
 54

 If each reader paid only $10 that would be $28,000 for the  least-viewed paper and still $360 for the least-saved paper
 ($140 OA fee at Zootaxa).
 And these are only papers from the past 5 years.

 > Message: 22
 > Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:22:36 +0000 (UTC)  > From: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>  > To: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>,  "Michael A. Ivie"
 >     <mivie at montana.edu>
 > Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit  > Message-ID:
 >     <1685864983.5827201.1452817356086.JavaMail.yahoo at mail.yahoo.com>
 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8  >  > Mike,  >  > […]  > Suppose that n people want to read a given publication.
 Suppose that they each must pay $100 (from public money) to  the publisher in order to read it. It is quite possible that  100n is significantly less than $20/page for open access,  given that no more than n people want to read it. Multiply  all that by the vast number of limited interest taxonomic  articles that get published every year, and the difference  in cost gets even greater.
 >
 > […]
 > Stephen
 >
 > 

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