Re: Springer Open Choice uptake affects 2011 journal pricing

[JOHANNES VELTEROP <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>]

Fred,

I'm interested to hear how you define 'fair'. And more to the 
point, perhaps, is the notion of fairness anything other than 
problematic in a situation where what you might call 'fair' 
publishers don't have anything to gain? Lower subscription prices 
rarely, if ever, increase sales. In fact, the smaller, cheaper 
journals are the most likely to be cut first, I understand.

If you don't like the price reductions in hybrid journals in 
proportion to their OA content, what you have to do is ignore the 
OA articles, and decide if the subscription price is what you 
would pay for the journal without that OA content. The logical 
next step is that you decide if a subscription price for any 
journal is fair on the basis of the (non-OA) number of articles 
published. If you look at subscription prices and divide them by 
the number of (non-OA) articles published, you'll find vast 
differences in subscription price per article. How do you decide 
what's fair? The average? The median? The modus? Would it depend 
on the mix of article types? And what would you do regarding the 
ones that fall outside your 'fair' range? Cancel? Or just moan? 
(I mean 'express displeasure', of course.)

I'm in favour of the 'Pay-Or-Go-Away' model of full OA. Hybrid 
journals are problematic, but they are better than journals that 
do not offer any OA option at all.

****

From: "Fred.Jenkins@notes.udayton.edu"

Springer Open Choice uptake affects 2011 journal pricing - That 
is a fallacy.  You are only talking about net publisher revenue, 
which would make sense if the journal were totally open source 
and nobody paid for a subscription.  But as long as the journals 
are partly open source and partly subscription model, anyone who 
wants the full content of the journal has to pay the subscription 
price.  If the same full-price institutional subscriber also pays 
some open access fees for its authors, the institution is 
actually paying more than the full subscription price!  Even 
those who don't pay author fees are then still paying "full 
price" for articles that the authors already have paid to have 
made open access, which can only be described as an out and out 
scam.  So at bottom you are saying that maintaining publisher 
revenues is what defines fair, regardless of how you get there.

Fred W. Jenkins, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Collections & Operations
& Professor, University of Dayton Libraries