Economic Issues Concerning Electronic Publishing and Distribution of Scholary Articles

WHILETHERE HAVE BEEN LITERALLY HUNDREDS of articles and other publications dealing with electronic publishing, few go beyond expressions of opinion or speculation. Very few recent publications, even those having the term “economics” in their titles, provide any empirical evidence concerning these speculations. This article presents some economic issues, provides some quantitative evidence concerning the economics of scholarly journal publishing, and extends these data to examine the economics of electronic publishing. It is believed that publishers and librarians alike tend to apply traditional economic approaches to journal publishing in which economic competition is among journals. However, evidence shows that consumer choices are in fact among alternative ways of obtaining needed information and the attributes of the alternative sources of information rather than choices among journals. Readers of scholarly articles appear to apply a valid economic rationale to deciding from which source to obtain needed information. These economic choices appear to drive the current journal market demand and may do so for electronic alternatives in the future. INTRODUCTION This article deals with the economics of four types of electronic distribution of scholarly articles. The first type of electronic distribution is what Elder (1994) calls “full-text journals online.” These are Donald W. King, King Research, 2615 Shoreline Road, Knoxville, T N 37932 Jose-Marie Griffiths, School of Information Sciences, 804 Volunteer Blvd., University of Tennessee, Knoxville, T N 37996-4330 LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 43, No. 4, Spring 1995, pp. 713-40