Re: Publishers' view/reply to David Prosser

["Sally Morris \(ALPSP\)" <chief-exec@alpsp.org>]

Curiously, there seems to be remarkably little evidence of author demand
for Open Access publication according to all the studies I have seen.  
There's a straw poll running on the ALPSP discussion list at the moment,
and so far no society publisher has reported demand from a single society
member.

In the end, it is author behaviour which will drive change

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
E-mail:  chief-exec@alpsp.org

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; "Anthony Watkinson "
<anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>; <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 11:32 PM
Subject: RE: Publishers' view/reply to David Prosser

> Even more to the point is that this is all a second-order problem. Once we
> are resolved to distribute the literature without direct cost to the user,
> and have devised the mechanisms for doing this, we are surely clever
> enough to redistribute the funding.  With respect to the UK and other
> countries where the funding for science research, teaching, and education
> is relatively centralized, this should be a particularly easy job. In
> countries like the US, where the sources of support are much more diverse,
> it will require more political ingenuity.
>
> There are two equally viable methods for distributing the literature, one
> of relatively high cost, which is author paid funding of new and existing
> journals, and the much more inexpensive system represented by ArXiv, and
> Harnad's proposals.  I ask those who doubt the financial viability of the
> author-paid route to consider the most likely practical alternative, which
> would essentially replace instead of modify the present journal system.
> Personally, I think there is a good chance the necessary adjustments can
> be made to retain the auxiliary benefits of present-day journals. But if
> not, I think most working scientists would be prepared to accepy an
> ArXiv-like solution, even if not as a first choice.
>
> Dr. David Goodman
> Associate Professor
> Palmer School of Library and Information Science
> Long Island University
> dgoodman@liu.edu