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re: potential positive spiral in transition to open access



The fallacy here is the assumption that without a publisher's staff overseeing and organizing the "volunteer" work of academic editors, it will get done in a timely fashion and produce a steady stream of publishable articles. All of my experience in forty years of publishing suggests that few scholars have the self-discipline and motivation to do this kind of work without external pressures. We have difficulty keeping some of our journals on schedule even with a lot of oversight!

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State Press


Peter Banks wrote:

I fail to see any rationale basis for zeroing in on subscriptionscosting more than $1,000. [Peter goes on to say that my modelmakes no distinction between journals in this category]. (from:http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0706/msg00082.html)

Comment:

The rationale for focusing on subscriptions costing more than$1,000 US per year, in this particular example, is that this isthe cost of a year's hosting and support for a journal at thenon-profit Scholarly Exchange(http://www.scholarlyexchange.org/).

A library paying subscriptions in this price range might be welladvised to inquire as to whether the journal could manage on avolunteer / in-kind support model. My model assumes that only asmall fraction of journals in this price range (10%) would beable to manage. Nevertheless, if even this small percentage ofjournals could transition in this fashion, there would besignificant savings over the library community as a whole, whichcould then be applied to other open access initiatives.

How could such an expensive journal manage on a volunteer /in-kind support model, or how can you tell whether a journalcould successfully transition in this way?

The key is whether the journal is essentially managing on such amodel now. In peer-reviewed scholarly literature, authors, andpeer reviewers, are not paid. Payment of editors varies widely;it can be a volunteer task, underpaid / paid at an honorariumlevel, or highly paid. Support costs also vary. Some journalspay for office space; others enjoy free space at universities,and editors and others often work from their homes as well.

Even if a journal is unlikely to be able to transition with justthe revenue from a single subscription, a polite inquiry wouldnot hurt. It would be helpful to advocacy efforts to change inscholarly communication to point out to the editors of suchjournals, that the cost of a single subscription is more thansufficient to fund one of the more substantial costs of managinga journal - hosting and support of the online version.

Further comments on my blogpost, A Potential Positive Cycle:More Access, More Funds, are most welcome!http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2007/06/potential-positive-cycle-more-access.html

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone,and
does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC ElectronicLibrary
Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com