Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club

© 2019 The Author(s). Learned Publishing © 2019 ALPSP. Much of the argument around reforming, remaking, or preserving the traditions of scholarly publishing is built on economic principles, explicit or implicit. Can we afford open access (OA)? How do we pay for high-quality services? Why does it cos...

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Main Authors: Hartley, John, Potts, J., Montgomery, Lucy, Rennie, E., Neylon, Cameron
Format: Journal Article
Published: 2019
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/74475
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author Hartley, John
Potts, J.
Montgomery, Lucy
Rennie, E.
Neylon, Cameron
author_facet Hartley, John
Potts, J.
Montgomery, Lucy
Rennie, E.
Neylon, Cameron
author_sort Hartley, John
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © 2019 The Author(s). Learned Publishing © 2019 ALPSP. Much of the argument around reforming, remaking, or preserving the traditions of scholarly publishing is built on economic principles, explicit or implicit. Can we afford open access (OA)? How do we pay for high-quality services? Why does it cost so much? In this article, we argue that the sterility of much of this debate is a result of failure to tackle the question of what a journal is in economic terms. We offer a way through by demonstrating that a journal is a club and discuss the implications for the scholarly publishing industry. We use examples, ranging from OA to prestige journals, to explain why congestion is a problem for club-based publications, and to discuss the importance of creative destruction for the maintenance of knowledge-generating communities in publishing.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2019
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-744752019-02-19T04:25:59Z Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club Hartley, John Potts, J. Montgomery, Lucy Rennie, E. Neylon, Cameron © 2019 The Author(s). Learned Publishing © 2019 ALPSP. Much of the argument around reforming, remaking, or preserving the traditions of scholarly publishing is built on economic principles, explicit or implicit. Can we afford open access (OA)? How do we pay for high-quality services? Why does it cost so much? In this article, we argue that the sterility of much of this debate is a result of failure to tackle the question of what a journal is in economic terms. We offer a way through by demonstrating that a journal is a club and discuss the implications for the scholarly publishing industry. We use examples, ranging from OA to prestige journals, to explain why congestion is a problem for club-based publications, and to discuss the importance of creative destruction for the maintenance of knowledge-generating communities in publishing. 2019 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/74475 10.1002/leap.1228 restricted
spellingShingle Hartley, John
Potts, J.
Montgomery, Lucy
Rennie, E.
Neylon, Cameron
Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club
title Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club
title_full Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club
title_fullStr Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club
title_full_unstemmed Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club
title_short Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club
title_sort do we need to move from communication technology to user community? a new economic model of the journal as a club
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/74475