Re: universities experiment with paying OA fees

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

Naturally, I am all in favor of Joe's proposed solution! But Karl 
misunderstood me. I was talking about journals with already 
well-established reputations changing their business models from 
subscription-based to fee-based, so the problem Karl points out 
would not pertain. My point was, rather, that this shift in 
funding source will simply shift the tensions in universities 
from one point (currently, libraries and their budgets) to 
another (departments and administrative bodies charged with the 
allocation of fees to faculty competing for the limited pot of 
gold to support gold OA).

Sandy Thatcher

>I believe Karl has this exactly right.
>
>I would phrase it this way:  Access to information is not a major
>problem most of the time; access to vehicles of certification can
>be a large problem (because certification is selective).
>
>Authors thus need access to the brands of certification, which
>are currently controlled mostly by publishers.  Brands are an
>aspect of an attention economy.  We have learned to recognize
>Coca Cola and Harold Varmus, as well as The Lancet and Nature.
>Peer review in itself does not confer certification; peer review
>in the context of respected brands does.
>
>An institution that wants to modify this situation needs to
>develop or assert a brand for certification.  Theoretically,
>Harvard's OA repository would associate the Harvard brand with
>the articles deposited there.  This is what I call "provostial
>publishing," in which the provost chooses the authors (by
>choosing the faculty).  But not all provosts are dealt the same
>hand; what works for Harvard won't work for less prestigious
>institutions.
>
>The more rational policy (yes, this is my hobbyhorse) would be
>for universities to increase their support for their university
>presses, which combine the selectivity of editorial review with
>the imprimatur of the institution.  I know of no university that
>is pursuing this strategy (though some universities are very
>proud, and rightly so, of their presses).
>
>Joe Esposito