Re: Journals, society activities and the zero-sum game

[jcg <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

Also, no one should forget that, in many countries, direct governmental
subsidies are in place (e.g Scielo). This means that countries like
Brazil, Chile, India, China, Mexico, etc. can offer OA publications at no
cost to authors (or their institutions, or their granting agencies). In
this way, they can aim directly for the best heads in the world,
especially if they invite some of them to be part of their editorial
boards. With OAI-PMH, good harvesters, etc., and the Internet, these
journals are bound to become as visible as those "marketed" by the largest
commercial publishers.

This amounts to a very interesting situation: relatively poor countries
that could not hope having any scientific publishing without public
subsidies suddenly find themselves with a publishing device with a
decisive advantage.  There are also a number of rich countries that use
direct subsidies to publish or support publishing of journals (e.g.
Canada, many European countries, etc.). They too will suddenly find
themselves in possession of a very powerful publishing device if they go
OA.

After all, this is where it all began: in the 18th century, academies
supported publishing covertly (e.g. Royal Society of London for a while)
or openly (e.g. Acad�mie royale des sciences de Paris, as well as many
other academies in Berlin, St-Petersburg, etc.). No one then thought that
scientific publishing was a commercial matter.

Jean-Claude Gu�don

On Mon August 2 2004 11:23 pm, Fytton Rowland wrote:

> Lowering prices isn't the only form of competition.  Ever heard of market
> segmentation?  PLoS obviously thinks that they can gesucceed with with a
> high author charge, for quality.  Other publishers may decide to go for a
> lower-price segment of the market.  May they all be successful!.
>
> What we don't want - in my view - is a single fixed price for all titles
> (not that we could have that, even if we wanted to).  That would not
> fulfil the function of a goodscholarly publishing system, because it would
> not encourage diversity of provision.
>
> Leaving aside the "green road to OA" for the moment (but not forgetting
> its existence, Professor Harnad!) - a vigorous system of OA journals would
> include a variety of different kinds of publisher with different kinds of
> journals.  The difference from the old toll-access system would be that
> the market would actually work, this time, because they who pay the piper
> (authors and their research funders) would be calling the tune.
>
> Fytton Rowland, Loughborough University, UK.