Re: Calculating the Cost : an author rejoinder

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

I fear there is still a misunderstanding - we seem to be talking about
apples and oranges.  The Wellcome figures, as the author of their report
freely admits, do not include either overheads or profits. Thus, to arrive
at what a publisher (conventional or otherwise) would need to charge, you
have to add something for both.  They will, of course, vary between
publishers for a whole variety of reasons (including the scale of their
investment in electronic platforms, future products etc).  As, indeed,
will the direct costs - above all else, due to (a) the percentage of
submitted papers which are in fact published and (b) the amount and nature
of editorial work carried out.

Phil is looking at the cost to the library - i.e. what they pay to the
'publisher', including whatever that publisher feels it needs to add for
both overhead and profit elements.

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Heather Morrison" <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; "SPARC Open Access Forum" 
<SPARC-OAForum@arl.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 12:55 AM
Subject: Fwd: Calculating the Cost : an author rejoinder

> with apologies for cross-posting -
>
> re:  paragraph 2 - Phil Davis writes "the purpose of me writing this
> rejoinder is because I fear that readers have not addressed the principal
> conclusions of this model"...
>
> Phil, will all due respect, one does not base accurate conclusions on
> erroneous data.  The cost per article is a critical factor in your
> calculations, and your low-end figure is higher than what many real-world
> publishers charge and estimate, and higher than the figures reported in
> the Wellcome Trust.
>
> My suggestion would be to correct the data, rather than commencing a
> discussion based on questionable conclusions.  One way to do this would be
> to add a series of columns with different cost estimates per article,
> illustrating whether libraries would pay more or less based on the cost. 
> For example, if the cost - to the library budget, not necessarily the
> total cost - were low enough, then ALL ARL libraries would save money by
> diverting funds from subscription to an author-pays system.
>
> One way to ensure that this cost was low:  place a maximum on the amount. 
> If the author wishes to publish with a reasonably-priced publisher,
> perhaps $500 for medium quality STM (perhaps lower for non-STM), up to
> $1,500 for high-quality - the library pays.  If a faculty member would
> like to publish with a much more expensive publisher, then the library
> pays up to the maximum, but the author, department, or funder needs to pay
> the remainder.  This system would provide authors with direct information
> about the efficiency of this service, a factor which is currently lacking
> and is likely one of the causes of the serials crisis.
>
> This is not to say that Phil is not bringing up good points - he is - it's
> just that a healthy debate does not begin with an erroneous conclusion.
>
> best,
>
> Heather Morrison