Re: OA economics & libraries

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

I expect that, besides Sage, there will be others taking up the 
PLoS model soon. That will be the path to the diamond mine....

As for commercial publishers' business savvy, maybe I have just 
talked to more STM publishers than David has?  (I also work 
part-time now for a commercial publisher, Lynne Rienner, and she 
is as savvy as they come!)

Sandy Thatcher


At 8:25 PM -0400 10/25/11, David Prosser wrote:
>A couple of points in reply to Sandy's first paragraph.
>
>The first is on costs.  A detailed piece of economic modelling
>(see below for link) showed that Gold OA would be cheaper for the
>UK (as a publication-heavy country) if the average price for
>publication was less than about 2000 pounds.  Interestingly, 2000
>pounds is significantly higher than the fee charged by most
>successful OA publishers and journals (BMC, Hindarwi, PLoS, New
>Journal of Physics, etc) and about the level of the most
>unsuccessful OA publishers (mainly hybrid options from larger
>publishers - and here I use 'successful' as meaning attracting
>authors and revenues to the publisher).  So certainly at this
>stage and based on the modelling done it would look as if a move
>to OA would save money - at least for the UK.
>
>The second is on publisher flexibility.  I do not recognise the
>picture of flexible, rapidly reactive large commercial publishers
>rushing to embrace Gold OA. Let's take Elsevier.  They have a
>hybrid model with very low take-up (they tell us) - I assume
>partly because it is priced to defend revenues, not attracted
>authors.  They have a tiny number of actual open access journals.
>There is no gold rush there.  Of the large publishers only
>Springer (a private equity company) appears to have embraced OA,
>having purchased BMC and now using that experience as a
>spring-board to launch a number of new OA titles.  And perhaps
>Nature as one of the smaller companies (although it is part of a
>much larger group).
>
>Where Sandy sees commercial publishers as being quick on their
>feet, I see feet dragging.  And why is that?  Well, if you were
>sitting on a diamond mine providing over 30% profits what would
>your reaction be to somebody who came and said 'Have I got a deal
>for you - get rid of your diamond mine and take up this great
>gold mine.  I can give you, say, 20% profits'?  Any chief
>executive who took that proposition to their shareholders would
>be quickly looking for a new job!
>
>David