• A journal is a club: A new economic model for scholarly publishing

    Author(s):
    John Hartley, Lucy Montgomery (see profile) , Cameron Neylon (see profile) , Jason Potts, Ellie Rennie
    Date:
    2017
    Group(s):
    Library & Information Science
    Subject(s):
    Economics, Publishers and publishing
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Publishing, Scholarly communication
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6NR6W
    Abstract:
    A new economic model for analysis of scholarly publishing—journal publishing in particular—is proposed that draws on club theory. The standard approach builds on market failure in the private production (by research scholars) of a public good (new scholarly knowledge). In that model publishing is communication, as the dissemination of information. But a club model views publishing differently: namely as group formation, where members form groups in order to confer externalities on each other, subject to congestion. A journal is a self-constituted group, endeavouring to create new knowledge. In this sense ‘a journal is a club’. The knowledge club model of a journal seeks to balance the positive externalities due to a shared resource (readers, citations, referees) against negative externalities due to crowding (decreased prospect of publishing in that journal). A new economic model of a journal as a ‘knowledge club’ is elaborated. We suggest some consequences for the management of journals and financial models that might be developed to support them.
    Metadata:
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    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
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