Re: Update from Multi-Science Publishing

["Pippa Smart" <pippa.smart@googlemail.com>]

The Knowledge-Exchange is a very interesting and innovative 
consortial arrangement - but I must stress that it is NOT Open 
Access. It is traditional subscriber-pays access - but in this 
case the subscriber is not an individual library or institution, 
but a larger group of institutions and libraries. Becoming part 
of KE does not make any publishers' content free to 
individuals/institutions outside the consortia.

At any institution, individual access is free at point of use if 
the institution has paid for access - the same is true with KE.

Pippa Smart
Research Communication and Publishing Consultant
PSP Consulting - www.pspconsulting.org
Skype: pippasmart
pippa.smart@gmail.com

****

2008/8/29 Hildegard Schaeffler <schaeffler@bsb-muenchen.de>:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> For more background information on the Knowledge Exchange tender
> please see http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=227
>
> Best regards
>
> Hildegard Schaeffler (on behalf of the KE licensing working group)
>
> ---------------------------------------
> Dr. Hildegard Schaeffler
> Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
> Leitung Referat
> Zeitschriften und Elektronische Medien /
> Head of Serials and Electronic Media
> D-80328 Muenchen
> E-mail: hildegard.schaeffler@bsb-muenchen.de
> ---------------------------------------
>
>
> "Okerson, Ann" <ann.okerson@yale.edu> 29.08.08 04:12 >>>
> Through the transom and of possible interest.  Anyone know more
> about the European Knowledge Exchange Project?
>
> ______________________________________________________
>
> From: Paul Bailey [mailto:paul@multi-science.co.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:23 AM
> To: librarians@scholarlycommunication.org
> Subject: RE: News from Multi-Science Publishing
>
> Dear Colleague,
>
> As a publisher, I have a keen interest in Open Access - at one
> level, the more people who see my content and can make use of it,
> the better. However, I have little faith in the presently mooted
> ways forward for Open Access. 'Author Pays' will not work;
> funding by philanthropic bodies fails the necessary long term
> test; as does the concept of setting up countless 'alternative'
> OA journals. Here, I want to describe a promising initiative we
> are engaged with, and to outline a way of quickly going much
> further.
>
> We have been invited to participate in Knowledge Exchange (see
> www.knowledge-exchange.info) which is a consortium venture
> between the national libraries of Germany, Denmark, the
> Netherlands and the UK, whereby our content - having been
> validated by Knowledge Exchange - is being offered to all the
> universities in those countries, under the terms of Knowledge
> Exchange's licence, which is devised with the universities
> interests at heart, of course. Some countries will provide the
> content to the universities in their country by means of a
> national licence; others will provide matching funds for those
> universities which decide to opt-in. Not only does the licence
> protect the universities position, the pricing structure is
> extremely favourable: under some scenarios the
> price/journal/institution/year is about $25!
>
> So, its quite a good OA start, to make our content available to
> all those universities, and higher education institutions, at
> such an eminently affordable price.
>
> But we would like to go a lot further, partly from OA enthusiasm,
> and partly because so much of our content is essentially applied
> science and potentially has a much wider audience than university
> researchers.
>
> Ideally, we would like to see national licences, perhaps
> organised and funded by a country's national library (or national
> digital library) so that any national of that country can access
> our content, at no cost at the point of use: free to users, in
> short. This is technically straightforward; the licence cost will
> be affordable. Most importantly, as trail blazing deals are made
> between Multi-Science and progressive national bodies, other
> publishers will feel the commercial need to follow, which opens
> up the possibility of countries acquiring vast amounts of
> excellent information, at negligible cost, for the benefit of all
> their citizens.
>
> You can find out more about our company and publications at
> www.multi-science.co.uk and you can see specimens of content,
> tables of contents, abstracts, at
> www.ingentaconnect.com.content/mscp
>
> I hope this is of interest, and would be pleased to hear any
> comments you might have. If you personally are in a position to
> drive matters forward, do please contact me; feel free to forward
> this message to colleagues who may also be interested.
>
> Best wishes
> W Hughes
> Director
> Multi-Science Publishing Co Ltd