Journals, society activities and the zero-sum game (RE: Thoughts on the House of Commons report (Chesler)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> There is no reason the readers of a chemical journal, who represent many
> subjects and many countries, should be required even in part to
> subsidize the other activities of the ACS.

Non-member readers of a chemical society's journal aren't required to
subsidize anything (members, on the other hand, are and should be).
They're invited to subscribe to the journal; if the price of the journal
corresponds to the value they expect to receive from reading it, then they
may do so.  The society may use subscription revenues to underwrite
society activities, and there's nothing wrong with that.  (I use part of
my salary to buy banjo strings -- does that mean Nevada's taxpayers are
being "required" to subsidize my banjo playing?)

What this all boils down to is the fact that, all protestations
notwithstanding, running a society (or any other organization) is in fact
a zero-sum game.  To the degree that a society's journal provides value to
its members, and to the degree that the society is no longer allowed to
use that value to create a revenue stream, its revenue stream will suffer.  
Maybe the overall benefit to society as a whole will be great enough that
it offsets the damage that mandatory OA would do to scientific societies
-- there's a potentially valid argument to be made there.  But let's not
pretend that mandatory OA won't hurt societies.

----
Rick Anderson
rickand@unr.edu