Money for OA; was, RE: fascinating question

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

I merely add to Sally's note that although it is important to determine
the access to funds now, it is yet more important to make provision for an
increased supply in the future. This is in a sense a mutual dependency: we
are more likely to get increased funds for author-paid OA journals when
there is a substantial quantity of important OA journals, and we are more
likely to be able to convert major journals to OA if the funds are
available to pay for the articles. This stalemate is one of the reasons
for the slow progress.

As a librarian, I am of course concerned with whether some portion of
library funds will be diverted to this purpose.  It seems reasonable to me
that they should be.  Just as an example, if all of the Elsevier titles
were to become paid-on-behalf-of-the-author OA. there is no reason that
the library should need the million dollars or so to subscribe to Science
Direct, It's not as if we got to keep the money--we are merely the
intermediaries in transferring it from the university to the publisher.

I have suggested similar on this list previously, to general ridicule.  
(http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0404/msg00057.html)
Having seen many truly absurd proposals in the interim, I again propose
that in order to accomplish OA, the subscription money saved for each
journal that becomes OA be divided in half.  One half should go to
partially support author fees--administered by anyone other than the
librarians--; the remaining half should be used to buy books.

(The remainder of the author fees should be grant and university funds--
they might not be able to pay the whole cost, but they probably could pay
part, and subsidize authors in fields that do not get significant grants
but still need money to publish.)

The university saves on money for the library.
The library saves on money for the publishers.
The publishers get to sell books to the library.
The authors find their publication supported.
The readers get access to all journals.

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 12/23/2004 11:44 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Fascinating quotation 
 
I tend to agree with David that OA could - in principle - appeal to many
publishers, as it satisfies their and their authors' aim of reaching the
maximum target readership.  However, there are some big questions to be
answered:

What does the publication (or submission + publication) charge need to be,
for the journal to remain viable and to satisfy whatever the
profit/surplus needs of the parent organisation may be?

Do authors have access to sufficient funds to cover that charge?

Only if the answer to the second question is yes, will OA succeed.  If the
answer is no, it will destroy journals (and potentially, societies too -
unlike commercial publishers, they don't have the option to get out and do
something different)

That is why we are carrying out our major research project (with AAAS and
HighWire) to try to obtain some concrete information, which is singularly
lacking at present

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
E-mail:  chief-exec@alpsp.org