Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the British Agricultural History Society
Executive Summary
This submission outlines the publication economics of a small academic journal, the Agricultural History Review which is privately published by the British Agricultural History Society and distributed worldwide. It outlines the Society’s views on “gold access”, “green access” and “the CC-BY” licence.
Introduction
The British Agricultural History Society (BAHS) is a registered charity that publishes an international journal, established in 1952, twice yearly: the Agricultural History Review (AgHR). We publish the journal ourselves, it is not owned by a publisher. Each edition contains 6 academic articles as well as book reviews, literature surveys and conference reports. Subscriptions cost £80/pa to institutions, £40/pa to waged individuals, £5/pa to students and the unwaged. As of 2011, we had 468 individual subscribers and 326 institutional subscribers worldwide. Our income from subscriptions/sales of the journal was £22,663 in 2010–11. Most of this income is spent on the production, distribution and administrative costs of the journal. Any surplus is spent on publishing a newsletter on rural history: Rural History Today (£2,500/pa), and subsidising BAHS events: the two annual conferences, bursaries for students to attend those conferences, bursaries for other individuals or organisations for events related to rural history. The BAHS’s membership is largely academic but also consists of farmers and independent scholars. The journal is currently open access five years after publication, and has been for some years. It can be accessed via our website: http://www.bahs.org.uk/ and, more recently, via JSTOR.
1. Concerns about “gold access”. Most of the authors who publish in the AgHR are not employed by British Universities: they are either academics from outside Britain, or independent scholars from within Britain (including retired academics, school teachers and local historians). Of those are employed by British Universities only a minority are publishing findings from research funded by RCUK grants. Income from gold access could not replace our subscription income unless we set the APC rate very high indeed. We could operate a hybrid system, whereby academics in British Universities paid APCs (of £2,000/article) to make their articles instantly (and individually) open access on publication, but where other authors did not pay, and we still drew our income from subscriptions. In that situation APCs would simply be an additional form of income for the society. However, APCs would never replace subscription income. From the point of view of the government and RCUK, gold access would lead to an substantial monetary subsidy to the AgHR for a very marginal benefit to British society as a whole.
2. It seems highly unlikely that the “gold access” model will ever be adopted internationally for the humanities and social sciences as it lacks any compelling economic, social or cultural logic.
3. Concerns about “green access”. Instant green access would remove the need for members to subscribe to the journal and would thus undermine our subscription income. Within a few years we would be left with no income to edit the journal or administer the society, and it would collapse. At present we make the journal open access after 5 years, and this functions well. It is unclear what effect reducing the period of privileged access for subscribers to 2 or 3 years would have.
4. We have no experience of operating a “CC-BY” licence. It seems likely that those British and especially non-British authors who understood its full implications would choose not to publish in the journal as a result, and would publish their research in other outlets instead, such as American academic journals (ie our less international rival Agricultural History) or in edited volumes. The licence would thus undermine the competitiveness of British journals.
Professor Jane Whittle
Chair of the British Agricultural History Society
4 February 2013
