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Electronic Publishing: Why isn’t it cheaper?
Lloyd Alan FletcherInformation Systems ManagerInstitute of Physics PublishingUKSG SeminarBristol, 29th January 2003
[email protected], www.iop.org
Questions to answer What costs does e-publishing enable us to
avoid? What new costs do we incur? How are cost drivers likely to change in the
future?
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120A
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Print only E-only Both
Editorial & production e-only production Print & distributione-product support Infrastructure
Avoidable costs?
Costs that exist for both print and electronic Acquisition, submission Peer review process Editing, quality control Production (e.g., XML file processing) About 80 percent of the total publishing costs
E-only production costs Online publication (putting the files online) Online article quality checking, reference link
checking
After delivery support costs Customer account set-up and administration Statistics and reports Customer and user trouble resolution (first
and some second line support)
System (software) development costs One-off build cost in the first place Periodic re-design One-off archive cost Trouble fixing (second and third line support) Demand for new features (e.g., z39.50
access, OpenURL, rich export functionality, searching)
System infrastructure costs Internal network Data storage Internal and online servers Bandwidth E-publishing platform software Technology maintenance (patches,
upgrades, compatibility) Hardware & software maintenance contracts Performance (application, server, network) Research: e.g., new access control methods,
standards compliance, new features
So what will drive down costs? Demand for print dwindles Declining cost of IT in general Economies of scale and scope (e.g.,
common Books and Journals publishing systems, publishers joining forces)
Open source (“free”) software: e.g., Linux operating system
Driving down cost of software ownership through better development practises
In conclusion Electronic publishing will be cheaper than
print only when print disappears altogether
