The STM Report

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Nov 03

During the Frankfurt Book Fair, the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) released a research report authored by Mark Ware and Michael Mabe, entitled The STM Report: An overview of scientific, and scholarly journals publishing. An update of an initial industry benchmark report done in 2006, the report delivers a positive picture of the private sector's contribution to the dissemination of scholarship, noting that "access to literature has never been wider nor cost per download lower." Yet, one of the final sentences of the report (pg. 63) reads, "Political, societal, and cultural pressure for increased access to all kinds of content will not go away and publishers have not yet convinced the whole community that evolution of the existing business models provides the most effective and sustainable way to achieve this."

In predicting outcomes for the next 3 to 5 years, the STM report notes:

• the likelihood of a drop in advertising revenues for those scientific peer-reviewed journals able to attract such advertising to offset production costs
• the likelihood that Chinese research output and the quality of that research output will overtake the US within the next decade
• that the licensing of bundled content (the "Big Deal") will remain the dominant model for ensuring access, with the likelihood of increased flexibility in areas of collection development and pricing models.

The full text of the announcement of the report as well as the report itself may be found here:
http://www.stm-assoc.org/news.php?id=255