Re: Money for OA; was, RE: fascinating question

["Sally Morris \(ALPSP\)" <chief-exec@alpsp.org>]

David is right - the total amount of money required under an OA model
would, indeed, continue to increase with the steady growth in the number
of papers (assuming OA made no difference to the flow of papers, then we
might expect the increase to continue at around 3% per annum overall).

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 1:18 AM
Subject: Money for OA; was, RE: fascinating question

> 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
> dgoodman@liu.edu