RE: Who gets hurt by Open Access?

["David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>]

Joe:

A really interesting list, some of which I agree with!  I think that you
have two points that contradict - if you decline to publish authors who
self-archive (c) you will find it harder and harder to publish the finest
work in the field (g).  I also remember that we were talking about your
view that open access would be bad for small publishers as they did not
have the deep pockets of the large publishers.  It strikes me that a
number of your points could be exploited more successfully by the large
publishers, leaving smaller publishers in the cold still - especially (f),
(h), (i), and (j).

However, our main point of disagreement comes in your last paragraph (and
we may have to accept that we will never agree on it).  You say '
Publishers should defend THEIR interests, just as librarians and authors
do theirs, as one would expect.' That's fine, but I have argued that for
some publishers - especially small publishers - open access may well be in
their interests.  It may be their best bet to retain a sustainable,
independent existence.  And I am sure that many society publishers would
rather find a way to turn their journal(s) into open access journal(s)
than to take your first option of selling out.

David 

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Esposito
Sent: 20 July 2005 22:54
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Who gets hurt by Open Access?

No, not at all.  My advice to small publishers is (a) seek consolidation,
whether by selling out to a larger company or by developing publishing
consortia (b) be very careful about working with aggregators, whose
success often undermines subscriptions (c) steer clear of Open Access,
including declining to publish authors who self-archive (d) if the journal
is owned by a professional society, regularly inform the membership how
much higher their dues will be if publishing revenues drop (e) petition
elected representatives to get the NIH and other governmental bodies to
get out of publishing (f)  seek new revenue streams by repackaging
material (new sales channels, licensed archives, etc.) (g) most
importantly, make every effort to publish the finest work in the
field--there is no substitute for editorial excellence (h) begin to
experiment with INEXPENSIVE author-pays hosting schemes, something between
arXiv and BMC, which strip away most of the costs associated with
editorial review (e.g., prepublication peer review) (i) aggressively
pursue search-engine marketing, bypassing library portals (j) actively
market the journal's role in certification to its readership (k) be wary
of marketing plans whose success is largely built upon price increases.

This list can go on and on.

There is a great deal that a publisher, big or small, could do.  What they
should NOT do is put valuable time into OA.  Publishers should defend
THEIR interests, just as librarians and authors do theirs, as one would
expect.

Joe Esposito