OFT report pulls punches

Interlending & Document Supply

ISSN: 0264-1615

Article publication date: 1 March 2003

36

Citation

(2003), "OFT report pulls punches", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2003.12231aab.027

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited


OFT report pulls punches

OFT report pulls punches

Below is Manfredi La Manna's response to the OFT report on Serial pricing which is reviewed by Jim Vickery elsewhere in this issue of ILDS. Manfredi's paper on ELSSS (the ELectronic Society for Social Scientists) appears in the previous issue of ILDS (Vol. 30 No. 4).

"Flattering as it may be to be regarded by the UK Office of Fair Trading as such a powerful competitor to Reed Elsevier to exempt the OFT from taking any regulatory action, I, as the organiser of ELSSS, am quite disappointed with their report on scientific journals.

"The report is full of references to the Royal Economic Society/ELSSS joint submission to the OFT, but omits to mention some of our proposals to level the playing field. For example, Elsevier's Big Deal has the specific aim of erecting a huge barrier to entry by making cancellations to single titles impossible/ineffective, thereby forcing potential entrants to face an entry price of ZERO while Elsevier can still go on charging preposterous subscriptions.

"In a Rejoinder to Joop Dirkmaat of Elsevier Science to appear in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Professor Ted Bergstrom tears to pieces Elsevier's fig-leaf that their high prices are due to their online services."

The report also gets short shrift from Toby Bainton of SCONUL – "If OFT believes that market forces may solve the problem it is more starry eyed than the most idealistic of academics. The free market model beloved by conservative economists is unrecognisable in the publishing arena – producers with equal power selling goods transparently in the same market place to buyers with similar purchasing power? Forget it!"

Source: Update, Vol. 1. No. 7, October 2002.

Related articles