In physics, we do. The American Physical Society (APS) journals are the gold standard in my field.
I'm a huge proponent of open-access publishing, but one must also appreciate the importance of the journals to the health of the society.
Here are relevant passages from statements by both candidates for treasurer in the 2018 APS election:
Candidate 1: James Baird
For now, there would seem to be three principal threats to the financial health of the Society. These are:
1. Open Access Publishing: Paid library subscriptions to APS journals constitute the largest single source of income to the society. Open access publishing threatens this subscription model. If paid library subscriptions disappear entirely, a new payer or payers will need to be found. Currently, this appears to be the author or the author’s institution. APS open access journal, Physical Review X, and the open access opportunities offered by the other Physical Review journals, are an ongoing experiment. The treasurer will need to be alert to financial trends in open access publishing.
Candidate 2: James Hollenhorst
APS is in very good shape, both in carrying out its mission and in its financial health. Nevertheless, the Society and its membership face many challenges, not the least of which is the threat to the business model due to rapid changes in the scientific publishing field. Open access is the rallying cry from the government, the universities, and from the readers and authors of our journal articles; but someone has to pay for the added value that APS brings.
What is the "added value" the society brings? If there was enough value add for researchers, then it could be incorporated into the membership fees. Conferences can be funded by commercial booths or higher attendance fees (most academic attendees are already paid for by grants); student conference scholarships can be paid for by a trust estabilshed by and promoted to senior scientists. The only other added value I can think of is political lobbying.
The society is a network of researchers with like interests. Political lobbying is also important for a lot of academic societies (like APS).
I find it interesting that you are advocating the removal of a current capitalistic/greedy funding model and replacing it with...another capitalistic/advertising model.
That post doesn't advocate for a new model; it just points out possible deficiencies in current conceptions.
>The society is a network of researchers with like interests.
So, the added value is for the researchers in the network, but that value is subsidized by the "payers", who are not the researchers?
>Open access publishing threatens this subscription model. If paid library subscriptions disappear entirely, a new payer or payers will need to be found.
Your scientific society sounds bad, and essentially has morphed in to a publishing company.
Seriously, a society should not be funded by publication fees.
Personally I think it would be better for the societies to stay small and be funded by membership fees or grant funding (as part of out reach other activities, meetings etc on grants).
If you find it through publishing you can’t really complain about the rent seeking behavior of journals...
Here is my hot take. Strictly speaking for APS, this funding model does not seem to be a big deal. If you are an active physicist in research, you are very likely to be part of an institution that has a subscription to the journals (university or national labs). If you are not an active physicist in research, the papers are probably prohibitively incomprehensible to you. I also think it makes sense for a society to publish journals. Societies facilitate the communication of research progress. This is clearly one of the goals of conferences. Papers in journals are usually a better format for communicating advances (more detail, can refer back to it at your leisure, peer reviewed, etc)
I'm a huge proponent of open-access publishing, but one must also appreciate the importance of the journals to the health of the society.
Here are relevant passages from statements by both candidates for treasurer in the 2018 APS election:
Candidate 1: James Baird
For now, there would seem to be three principal threats to the financial health of the Society. These are:
1. Open Access Publishing: Paid library subscriptions to APS journals constitute the largest single source of income to the society. Open access publishing threatens this subscription model. If paid library subscriptions disappear entirely, a new payer or payers will need to be found. Currently, this appears to be the author or the author’s institution. APS open access journal, Physical Review X, and the open access opportunities offered by the other Physical Review journals, are an ongoing experiment. The treasurer will need to be alert to financial trends in open access publishing.
Candidate 2: James Hollenhorst
APS is in very good shape, both in carrying out its mission and in its financial health. Nevertheless, the Society and its membership face many challenges, not the least of which is the threat to the business model due to rapid changes in the scientific publishing field. Open access is the rallying cry from the government, the universities, and from the readers and authors of our journal articles; but someone has to pay for the added value that APS brings.