Re: Publishers' view/reply to David Prosser

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>]

The fact that I think librarians should ask for more money does not
prevent me from failing to agree with David Goodman's first sentence nor
does it mean that I think scholarly communication will benefit from OA. As
I said before I do not feel qualified to take the long view.

He is right to emphasise the global picture.

Calculations have been done in the UK which appear to show that the cost
to the government (equate government with funding of OA charges which one
cannot of course) of a total OA regime (based upon $1500 per article) will
be about twice as much as the £89m spent by libraries on STM journals. If
someone looks into these figures and finds flaws in the calculation please
accept advance apologies. I have not done the calculations myself but it
seems plausible as the UK is a net exporter of scientific papers - a
curious concept but one which no doubt appeals to government. It has also
been suggested that the big gains will be for the corporates who
apparently account for 25% of journal income through their spending on
scholarly materials. Again I am quoting figures I have not investigated.

Anthony Watkinson

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 12:17 AM
Subject: RE: Publishers' view/reply to David Prosser

> It is absolutely impossible for OA to cost more, in a global sense, if we
> aggregate every type of expense.  The same work is being done to produce
> the same output.  In fact, it must cost a little less if we remove access
> control from the necessary work.
>
> That said, it is true that the costs will be very differently distributed,
> and dealing with this may be a significant problem. I think all librarians
> are fully aware of the difficulty of changing things in a university
> environment.
>
> I suggest that publishers and librarians might want to work together, not
> in opposition, in clarifying the issues, in experimenting, and in bringing
> about change. I'd like to think, Bernie, that you agree.
>
> David Goodman
> Palmer Library Chool of LIU
> dgoodman@liu.edu