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Re: Subscription to Open Access Transition

I do wish people would stop trotting out physics as an example that self archiving does not lead to cancellations. While it has not done so yet, some physics and mathematics publishers who have journals replicated more or less in their entirety in arXiv have made no secret of their concerns, arising from the significant drop in downloads on the publisher's site. Coupled with evidence from surveys of librarians that they would, under certain circumstances, consider cancellation and that usage is an increasingly significant factor, this adds up to a potentially alarming scenario. Please can we stop pretending it isn't so?

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
Email: sally.morris@alpsp.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "Heather Morrison" <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 12:20 AM
Subject: Subscription to Open Access Transition

greetings Ahmed,

Many thanks for your comments on Liblicense about Subscription to
Open Access transition, at
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0607/msg00185.html.

Hindawi certainly has expertise in making OA business models succeed, and it is very good to see your paricipation in this discussion!

The experience with physics illustrates that open access does not equate with cancellations; even with 100% open access in arXiv with some areas of physics, there is no evidence that this has caused any cancellations.

This is because, with academic publishing, the producers and consumers are largely the same, which is what, to me, gives hope of a smooth transition. Libraries do not look at academic journals strictly as a purchaser, as per your example; rather, they work in cooperation with faculty to decide what to subscribe to and what to keep rather than cancel. Faculty know which journals are important in their field, and will not recommend cancellations due to open access.

Funding for open access can - and, ideally, should, come from a variety of sources. One source is the university's own funds; this is one pot of money, which is divided up into different ways (library subscription budget, department funds).

To see the potential for a smooth transition to open access, I think it is helpful to look beyond the differences, and see the one pot of money that can easily be transformed from purchase to production-based payment. This is easiest with one central purchasing department, and to me, it makes sense that this would be the library.

The subscription / open choice hybrid is just one approach to this transition, which might work better for some publishers than others - particularly traditional publishers who might be finding a straightfoward OA transition difficult.

It makes sense to me that libraries should also coordinate payments to more straightforward OA publishers. This will mean invoicing efficiencies for universities, libraries, and publishers. This, too, can be a hybrid system, which may be less visible for the publisher - that is, funds might come from funding agencies, departments, or the library budget, or some combination - the publisher need not know the details.

For the OA publisher, in addition to invoicing efficiencies, this can be a helpful marketing tool; once the invoicing arrangement is set up, libraries can help to provide information to faculty about how to go about publishing OA with the libraries' partners.

If any library would like to pursue this, one option at present is to consider this on a publisher-by-publisher and/or journal-by-journal basis. For example, if a publisher or journal has a reputation for excellent quality at reasonable prices, then the library might pre-approve payment of 100% of the fee. Of, if the library does not see 100% as affordable, the library could coordinate payment and pay a percentage if the department pays the rest; it might be wise to cap the fee the library will pay, to encourage efficiency in the system, and make sure that faculty members look carefully at the higher fees.

There are other hybrid arrangements already in place that publishers are participating in, like PLoS or BMC, which offer a membership arrangement for libraries that automatically means a lower fee for their faculty on submission.

thoughts?

Heather G. Morrison
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com