The function of scientific journals: Scholarly communication or a money-making racket?

Mr Guha has got it badly wrong. There are dozens of targets to choose from when looking at the way academic and other institutions make money from somewhat dodgy activities, but scientific journals are the least culpable. Of course there are offenders; it is well known in the trade that ‘DSM’ in the well-known classification system stands for ‘Diagnosis as a Source of Money’, but the average scholarly scientific journal is not culpable. We can only defend our own journal, the British Journal of Psychiatry, with full and accurate information. However, in correcting the impression that the premises of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Belgrave Square, London SW1, replete with crystal chandeliers (not the rarest of commodities), are funded by dirty money, we suspect that we are speaking for many other journals too.

In the Annual Report of the College presented in July 2006 the income of its publications arm totalled £1.7 million and its expenditure was £1.43 million (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2006). The surplus largely covers the cost of providing members' copies, and any extra goes towards funding the other activities of the College. Mr Guha asks what the College is actually for; the list of activities is too long to reproduce in full, but includes publishing books and reports, running the MRCPsych exams, lobbying the government on mental health issues, working to uphold and improve standards in psychiatric education and training, running conferences and scientific meetings, providing training courses, conducting research into service issues, running audit and quality improvement networks and accreditation services, managing the Continuing Professional Development process, running public education campaigns, and providing good quality public information. Mr Guha complains about the quality of information available to service users; he will be pleased to hear that most of the 300,000 visitors to our website each month are downloading (free of charge) our highly praised leaflets.

We also publish some good journals. The picture that Mr Guha paints of a £1000 quarterly journal is a gross caricature. Our institutional price is £260, for which you get 12 substantial issues with online access thrown in free. The College supports the principles of open access, and after one year all journal articles are available to the public. The print version of the journal is still wanted by libraries but we appreciate that this demand will become less as electronic communication takes over, but many will still want, and treasure, their printed copies. We provide immediate online access free to 78 low and middle income countries, and are committed to promoting the development of new journals in these countries as this form of communication remains a prime aim for colleagues keen on developing new research and clinical programmes (Tyrer, 2005). The editor, associate editors, international editorial board members and reviewers (apart from specialist statisticians) receive no fees for their work. In a recent review of journal cost-effectiveness (http://www.journalprices.com/) the British Journal of Psychiatry was placed in 6th position out of 74 mental health journals in terms of good value. The price is of little relevance to our members, however, all 11,600 of whom get it free. As for the suggestion that researchers don't read journals any more, we can only speculate as to who downloaded over a million full-text BJP articles in 2005.

As for our Belgravia address, it is placed in Belgrave Square on what Lady Bracknell described in Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest as “the unfashionable side”, but which we are nonetheless pleased to occupy. The lease was purchased many years ago, at a time when it was considered essential to have a prestigious building to lend gravitas to a fledgling Royal College, and now costs us just £500 p.a. in ground rent.

The notion that the College is somehow subsisting on income from its publications is simply laughable and needs to be put to rest. Like the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, who went hunting and shot his lawyer friend, we hope by mistake, Mr Guha should mind both where and at whom he is firing.

Declaration of interest

Professor Peter Tyrer is the Editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry and Dave Jago is the Head of Publications of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.