QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

In studying the economics of scientific publishing, we have been struck by the fact that in most scholarly disciplines, library subscription prices for journals produced by for-profit publishers are 3 to 5 times as much per page as for journals produced by societies and university presses. The high prices of many for-profit journals do not reflect higher quality as measured by citation rates. But as you know, these high prices have driven the current "serials crisis" that leaves even large research libraries unable to afford all of the journals that their users demand.

We have set out to develop better quantitative measures of journal cost-effectiveness. We believe we have done this with Eigenfactor.org (http://www.eigenfactor.org), a journal ranking system that evaluates the influence of scientific journals using the same sort of network- based mathematics that Google uses to rank web pages. Using our measures of citation influence and the list prices for scholarly journals, we have ranked the cost-effectiveness of over 6000 academic journals. The most cost-effective journals are the likely "must-buy" periodicals for even small libraries wishing to cover the subject area. Indeed, a number of major university libraries and library consortia already use our metrics in making their subscription decisions.

Genes & Development ranked number 1 in terms of cost-effectiveness in the field of Developmental Biology (See http://www.eigenfactor.org/). We are aware of the difficultiesthat any journal faces in trying to keep article quality high while holding subscriptions costs down. Our numbers suggest that you and your editorial board have successfully met this daunting challenge. Congratulations on this and please feel free to share this information with readers and subscribers.

Sincerely,

Jevin West
Ted Bergstrom
Carl Bergstrom

Eigenfactor.org
University of Washington