RE: Fascinating quotation

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

Joe, and Scott, (This is a reply to both their postings)

Like most analyses, my analysis can be turned to very different
conclusions. As I see it, it is very much in the interest of almost any
publisher to make their materials OA .

Authors will publish materials where there is both prestige and relevant
readership (there have been debates about the relative importance, but the
two go together.) For any journal the OA advantage both in immediate
notice and in access means more readers than otherwise. Given a
prestigious journal that does have OA, and one of equal prestige that does
not, any rational author of a good manuscript will send it to the one with
OA. More readers will see it, they will access it more easily, and they
arf\e more likely to find it in the first place.  (This applies to even
the best journals which all research libraries subscribe to)

For an author whose work is not so superlative in quality that the most
prestigious group of journals will publish it (and that includes most
articles by most authors), an author seeks that journal of greatest
prestige and readership that will accept it. Even though not famous, most
authors want their work to be read.

In selecting a journal to try, such an author would even more strongly
prefer the OA journal, because we are now talking about journals that are
already not subscribed to by all libraries. .  It is only the author whose
work is so low in quality that nobody is likely to want to read it, who
will not care about OA. Such authors normally publishing only to satisfy
the academic requirements, and any peer-reviewed journal will do,
regardless of the low quality of the peer review.  These are the journals
that libraries will discontinue first when they must, and OA or no OA
isn't the least concern if no one will actually read it.

I therefore conclude that the best journals must have OA to continue
attracting the top articles; and most other journals will also find their
chances of survival improved by OA.  The journals of primarily local
interest also need it if they are attract world-wide readership. The
journals in tiny specialties may find the low cost end of OA the only
practical way to publish.

There is one part where we all agree: To quote Scott: There will be almost
no effect for the first few years while OA is phased in. Mark writes he
would never cancel a journal because 25% were OA, and we know this is not
about to happen. And to quote Scott, "It is quite possible that the
various open access experiments will lead to conditions that will cause
biomedical libraries to cancel subscriptions.� The NIH proposal, in its
current form, is not one of them"  Unanimous agreement on that, from
anyone who can do the arithmetic.

At the least, similar policies are needed for other subjects, and other
countries. Even so, I think we would still agree that any cancellations
will not primarily be due to OA. OA will be only one of the many
subsidiary factors involved in such decisions.

It should not be assumed that OA will be a negative factor. Quality,
price, and use being equal, I as a selector would keep the medium quality
journal with OA rather than the one without, because the one with OA will
be more likely to attract somewhat better authors.

The peripheral title effect is another matter, and so is the question of
what will replace the lowest quality journals., and so is Joe's analogy
with the big deal. This posting is already long enough.

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 Joseph Esposito
Sent: Wed 12/22/2004 12:33 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Fascinating quotation
 
I believe David's analysis is correct.  This is why it is almost never in
the interest of a publisher, whether commercial or not-for-profit, to make
publications available in any form of Open Access, including
self-archiving.  Librarians will reward the "good guys" who support OA
with cancellations.  The "almost" of this formulation points to why
publishers of very prestigious, core journals may indeed support limited
OA, since their leadership in this regard compels the publishers of
smaller or less central journals to follow suit, and it is the journals on
the periphery that are at risk.  In effect, support for OA by the big guys
results in cancellations for the little guys.  Interestingly, this is also
precisely what the now maligned Big Deal led to, except that OA now has
the support of many librarians.

Joe Esposito