RE: Major society publisher announces support for public access to scientific literature

["Shaffer, Patricia" <Patricia.shaffer@INFORMS.ORG>]

Peter is in fact correct in the second part of his assertion as 
well as the first: the ASCB experience can justify FRPAA only for 
a limited cohort of journals. Math journals with a long shelf 
life used by researchers in engineering and business schools 
would be at risk under the FRPAA provisions. (Research is not 
only about the life sciences.) Our authors get grants from NSF 
but generally don't get huge research grants that could cover 
publication costs. The problem is with a one-size-fits-all 
policy. The marketplace can adjust to accommodate the 
differences, but government edict can't -- or won't. Our 
subscriptions are moderately priced, but our authors could not 
support our twelve journals from their grant money and I don't 
believe subscriptions would be maintained under FRPAA access. The 
embargo is not long enough.

Patricia Shaffer
Director of Publications
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

________________________________

From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Heather Morrison
Sent: Mon 2/12/2007 6:44 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Major society publisher announces support for public access 
to scientific literature

Peter Banks wrote:

>Although I think many journals can probably make content 
>available earlier than they do without much risk to their 
>business models, you can't take the experience of the ASCB 
>journal and make that the case for FRPAA.

Peter Banks also wrote, to the American Scientist Open Access
Forum, on January 30th:

>I don't disagree with anything you say. At the American Diabetes
>Diabetes, we made Diabetes Care available freely available three
>months after publication, and the most clinically significant
>papers available immediately (as well as allowing authors to
>make postprints immediately available upon acceptance). That
>system preserved our subscription and advertising revenue,
>allowing us to invest in the kinds of education that patients
>and professionals most desired.
>
>I think this was a reasonable system for supporting both wide
>access to the primary literature and the creation of sought
>after interpretive literature. Going for universal free access
>to published papers would have made the system collapse. Yes, I
>cared about profits--because any net income supported research,
>education, and information tailored for doctors and patients.

Original message can be found here:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/6046.html

[snip]

Conclusion:  Diabetes Care moved to a combination of immediate
and 3- months-delayed open access for the journal per se, plus
allowing for self-archiving of postprints immediately on
acceptance for publication (i.e., before publication).
Subscription and advertising revenue were preserved.  Not only
did Diabetes Care continue to receive enough revenue to cover the
costs of publication - it continued to receive enough profit to
fund other association activities, too.

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