RE: JISC Invitation to Tender: Open Access Publishing Initiative Round 2

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

Sally,

I think your letter implies that most society publishers did not begin to
consider Open Access until the JISC proposal was issued. Given the HoC
report, I find it difficult to imagine a publisher not recognizing that
they might have to deal with the consequences, and deal with them as early
as the coming subscription year.

Even a publisher who has been continuing strenuous efforts to prevent the
realisation of the proposals, and thoroughly condemns them from every
point of view, must have realized that there was a reasonable possibility
that they would come into effect.

Do you really think that UK publishers would have been planning not to to
permit UK authors to fulfill their forthcoming obligations, and thus limit
their publishing to authors from the countries that might not have a
similar requirement?
 
Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Sally Morris (ALPSP)
Sent: Thu 9/30/2004 7:36 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: JISC Invitation to Tender: Open Access Publishing Initiative Round 2
 
There is, however, a major flaw in the JISC approach - the timing.

For a publisher - particularly, but not only, one such as a learned
society whose other activities are entirely dependent on its (modest)
surplus from publishing - changing the business model is a major step.  
Such a step cannot possibly be taken without lengthy and careful
deliberation over (I would guess) at least 6 months - not 6 weeks

And such a change has to take effect, to make any sense, from the
beginning of a subscription year, which runs from January to December.  
Publishers make their pricing decisions for the following year in the
early Summer and announce their prices in August or (at a pinch) September
- renewals are already starting to arrive from September onwards.

The JISC announcement is, therefore, once again far too late to stimulate
any change in publishers' thinking.  All it will do is provide windfall
support for those who have already decided to test the Open Access model
on either an optional/hybrid or a full, immediate OA model.  This makes
the initiative, to my mind, a missed opportunity

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
E-mail:  chief-exec@alpsp.org