Re: Cost of Open Access Journals: Other Observations

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

Fytton:  Your message makes sense; I too believe(d)  that the OA journals
charging publication fees were established, (at least partly) in order to
test the viability of author-pays, rather than reader-pays, for a variety
of interesting reasons.  But last weekend, when participating on an OA
panel at a society conference and making a similar point to yours, I heard
from one of the highly visible OA publishers that the reason they created
library membership fees was that a number of libraries had approached
*them* (the publishers) and said they wanted to help -- and asked how they
could support these journals/publishers financially, could they pay
something?  From this response, which has also been mentioned in other
fora, it would appear that we in the library community somehow don't want
to test this option in any rigorous way -- or at least we are not
advancing that experiment.

(Note herein I'm not saying that librarians should or shouldn't have made
these offers, but now reporting a discussion at a recent meeting of STM
journal editors.)  Ann Okerson/Yale Library

On Thu, 27 May 2004 J.F.Rowland@lboro.ac.uk wrote:

> Publication charges for OA journals need not and should not be seen as a
> *library* expense.  The intention is that they be charged to (first
> preference) the research grant that funds the research reported in the
> paper or (second preference) the institution that employs the author ar at
> which the author is a research student.  In my opinion the institution
> should charge them internally to the department where the research is
> carried out.  Some are charging them to the library, but I think they are
> misguided in doing so.  Regarding them as a library expense, as Leach does
> here, muddies the waters and hides the critical difference between opan
> access and toll access.
> 
> Fytton Rowland, Loughborough University, UK.