RE: Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Critique of PRC Study

["Velterop, Jan, Springer UK" <Jan.Velterop@springer.com>]

While I can agree with much of what Rick Anderson says here, his 
last sentence is puzzling. As one of the serious problems of Gold 
OA he quotes "the significant amount of money that a widespread 
Gold OA solution would redirect from needed research."

How so? Why would publishing become more expensive when the way 
to sustain it changes? If one thinks that Gold OA would redirect 
a significant amount of money away from needed research, what 
about subscriptions? Don't subscriptions do the same? Doesn't any 
money that sustains journals?

Isn't the logical conclusion then that sustaining formal 
publishing is, by definition, because it always involves 
resources, redirecting those resources away from research? Is 
Rick arguing that publishing can't be seen as integral to 
research and that therefore any funds used to sustain publishing 
come at the expense of research?

Jan Velterop

> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Anderson
> Sent: 14 May 2007 23:03
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu; liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: RE: Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions:
> Critique of PRC Study
>
>> (1) If/when mandated Green OA self-archiving ever makes
>>  subscriptions unsustainable, journals will switch to Gold OA
>
> First of all, mandated Green OA (according to the Harnadian 
> model) makes subscriptions unsustainable by definition -- in 
> exactly the same way that handing out unlimited free hamburgers 
> on the sidewalk in front of a hamburger stand makes running the 
> hamburger stand unsustainable.
>
> Second of all, "journals will switch to Gold OA" is a 
> breathtakingly breezy and naive statement, especially coming 
> from someone who casually bats away every other reasonable 
> prediction as "mere supposition."  The reality, of course, is 
> that some journals will go Gold and some will simply go out of 
> business. Gold OA itself presents numerous serious problems, 
> most of which have already been discussed at length on this 
> list and elsewhere. Not least among them is the significant 
> amount of money that a widespread Gold OA solution would 
> redirect from needed research.
>
> ---
> Rick Anderson
> Dir. of Resource Acquisition
> Univ. of Nevada, Reno Libraries
> rickand@unr.edu