Re: journal and publication costs, corrected figures

[David Goodman <dgoodman@princeton.edu>]

Heather, I would like to express my thanks for your note. All of this is
significant. Along the lines you have suggested, we should also consider
the expense of contracts, purchasing, dealing with journals that stop
working, etc. Most large libraries have one or more full time people
working on these things alone.  Similarly, we should consider the cost of
maintaining these structures at the publishing end, and how much they
might be contributing to the cost of producing and distributing the
material.

Dr. David Goodman
Princeton University Library
and
Palmer School of Library & Information Science, Long Island University
dgoodman@princeton.edu

----- Original Message -----
From: Heather Morrison <hmorrison@ola.bc.ca>
Date: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 5:02 pm
Subject: Re: journal and publication costs, corrected figures

> As David Goodman points out, there are many more system components to
> consider in the economic picture if universities move to an author-
> paysopen access system.
> 
> One of these components is the cost to universities and their libraries
> of limiting access:  all the hardware, software, and programming costs
> involved in authentication systems.  For example, as we saw in 
> December on Liblicense, there are reasons to believe that current 
> authentication methods are not sufficient, given the current model of 
> licensing of information.
> 
> What will be the cost to universities everywhere to upgrade, and what 
> will be the end result?  Is it possible a great deal of time and money 
> will go into new systems that will once again prove inadequate as 
> hackers learnnew tricks?  If systems investments of universities en 
> masse were redirected towards an author-pays, open access system, could 
> the result be both cost savings and greater access for all universities 
> and their libraries?  Not to mention more meaningful tasks for systems 
> people...
> 
> Another component is interlibrary loan.  By making articles more
> accessible on a broad scale, university libraries would have an
> opportunity to save money because other libraries would be able to 
> accessmaterials directly more often rather than through 
> interlibrary loan.
> 
> Of course, it's good to know that cost savings would apply even before
> considering these other components.
> 
> a personal view by,
> 
> Heather Grace Morrison
> BC Electronic Library Network
> Email:  hmorrison@ola.bc.ca