Re: universities experiment with paying OA fees

["Elizabeth Kirk" <Elizabeth.E.Kirk@Dartmouth.EDU>]

With all due respect to Karl's experience, it's hardly universal. 
Not only do many, many libraries provide access to OA journals, a 
good number of us publish them (including my own, in the interest 
of complete disclosure). And as for downgrading journal 
importance based on library holdings, it is more often the case 
that libraries are expected to carry the journals deemed 
important to faculty--they read them they recommend them to their 
students, we need them. The library, not the journal, gets 
downgraded when these aren't on the shelves or on the screen.


Elizabeth E. Kirk
Associate Librarian for Information Resources
Dartmouth College Library
Hanover, NH 03755

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Bridges" <kbridges@uvm.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; "Sandy Thatcher" <sgt3@psu.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: universities experiment with paying OA fees

> OK, but...
>
> Is there a potential problem in that, by changing to open 
> access, libraries might be less willing to provide access and 
> there would be resulting drop in the willingness of people in 
> academia to accept publication in those venues as "legitimate"?
>
> I have, for example, seen one or two instances in my career 
> where the fact we didn't carry a particular journal caused 
> departments to "downgrade" the value of those periodicals in 
> terms of tenure decisions.  Seems stupid, but you do hear those 
> "Well, if it was an important journal we'd carry it and the 
> fact we don't means it must be less important." arguments. I 
> also wonder about the whole issue of impact factors.  That 
> matters quite a bit to some departments and lack of impact 
> factor measures for OA publications is of some concern. Sort of 
> off topic from what Sandy was getting at, but it seems a 
> legitimate concern. (and I agree -- Joe for King!!!)
>
>
> Quoting 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