RE: Librarians, Publishing Behavior, & Open Access

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

There is a superstition among most librarians and most publishers that
lower journal prices will mean lower income to the publishers, whether
this is brought about by fewer subscription or fewer titles. This will
only be the case if the libraries are weak enough to let the money be
taken from them, The proper use of money that is freed by some forms of
OA, and by cancellations regardless of OA is in purchasing other library
material. There is no shortage of opportunities--the scope for expensive
digitalization projects will continue for many decades--the possibility of
publishing books, whether in the sciences or humanities, will continue
indefinitely.

When research libraries generally had sufficient funds to purchase the
needed journals, the difference between a good and a mediocre collection
was in the books purchased, and there were enough good collections that
publishers could expect reasonable sales for their scholarly titles.  Now
there are the possibilities for possible syntheses of media unimagined
then-- and their nonrealization is not lack of projects, but lack of
funding.

Recently the most expensive of the science publishers introduced a new
indexing service. In my review http://charlestonco.com/comp.cfm?id=3D43,
the conclusion was "buy Scopus if you can" -- but there is no practical
way for libraries to afford it. If the publisher discontinued the least
important 20% of its journals, most research libraries would have the
money, and it would be better spent from every perspective.

I am still accustomed to think the most interesting part of a library the
new book shelves, and the most interesting part of a publisher's offering,
the new titles. During most of my career, I have watched the slow decline
in both--and in favor of what-- the lowest quality journals with the least
read and cited material. I have heard many fascinating proposals for
projects that even the richest libraries can not afford. OA offers
libraries and publishers the opportunity to jointly provide academic
readers a wider range of material, and academic writers the proper
publishing opportunities.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu