Re: NIH Public Access Mandate Passes Senate

[Thomas Krichel <krichel@openlib.org>]

Toby.GREEN@oecd.org writes

> It is also true that most IGOs have contracted out the 
> publishing of their research journals to specialist journal 
> publishers (often commercial) because they couldn't provide the 
> investment and support needed to develop the journals. In some 
> cases, reports are also contracted out to book publishers for 
> the same reasons. The pressure to outsource is currently 
> growing in IGOs.
>
> Virtually all IGOs run their publishing operations at a loss 
> and funding for these losses is getting harder and harder to 
> find as member governments squeeze budgets. In some cases the 
> posting of reports online for free has badly eroded the revenue 
> streams from selling publications, causing financial problems. 
> As with many university presses, it is often the publishing 
> operation that gets hit when the squeeze is on as this activity 
> is not considered 'core'.

I don't understand this.

The IGOs contract out the publishing operation to a publisher. 
The publisher sells the output, earns money from that, and then 
the IGO also pays the publisher again, to compensate them from 
having "suffered" profits from the sale of the publication? Or 
where else does the loss come from?

> Larger IGOs like World Bank, OECD and the main parts of the UN 
> have in-house publishing operations that work with the authors 
> to improve their original manuscripts and promote the resultant 
> reports. The financial squeeze means there is less support for 
> authors and fewer resources for promotion efforts. (Promotion 
> might not seem important, but what is the point of putting out 
> a report if no-one reads it?) It is also noticeable that small 
> IGOs are struggling to get their reports 'out there' because 
> they don't have the in-house resources and skills to publish 
> their work properly.

You have to fire the multiply layers of bureaucrats who don't 
know anything about computers and the Internet. That IGOs are 
wasteful is not a problem of the publishing system.

> Two things here: firstly, IGOs have employed publishing staff 
> to support authors - will funding agencies end up doing the 
> same?

You need only one competent person, she can do this as part of 
her time. Many of the 800+ RePEc archives are staffed by simple 
administrators. No need to fund this.

Cheers,

Thomas Krichel                    http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                               RePEc:per:1965-06-05:thomas_krichel
mostly offline 2007-11-01 to 20007-11-18     skype: thomaskrichel