Chronicle Article: John Ewing/American Math Society

[Liblicense-L Listowner <liblicen@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Several readers of this list have suggested that Dr. Ewing's article in 
the CHE is worth a look.  This is from the issue dated 10/1/04, and
is available to those with subscriptions to print or online editions.

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Open Access to Journals Won't Lower Prices

By JOHN H. EWING

Journals publishing is in crisis. For years, subscription prices have gone
up rapidly, with the average annual increase now close to 10 percent; some
journals cost three times as much today as they did a decade ago. The
budgets of university libraries have fallen far behind, forcing librarians
to cancel subscriptions. Publishers have used declining subscriptions as a
rationale to increase prices even more. And the literature has expanded,
creating fatter journals (and yet another reason for publishers to
increase prices). Scholars and librarians have become increasingly unhappy
about the state of affairs, and they demand action.

So what action do they suggest? They want to change the way in which
publishers collect the money. Go figure. Instead of collecting money
through subscriptions, they plan to charge authors a fee -- perhaps $1,500
per article, although higher amounts have been suggested. We are told that
the real problem is access to information, and that we should focus our
attention on making material more accessible. Magicians call this
technique misdirection, and it's at the heart of all tricks.

Are open-access advocates really trying to trick everyone? No -- this
misdirection is caused by a mistake.

When the Internet was new, people thought that electronic publishing meant
free publishing. Subscriptions were unnecessary, they argued, because
there was no reason to collect money to pay for something that had no cost
and required no effort. Everyone would have access to all journals.

By the time people realized that electronic journals did have costs --
editing, hardware, and software, for example, are not free -- what had
been considered a side benefit (open access) had become an
ideology. "Information must be free" was the slogan. Barriers to
scholarship must be eliminated, and no one should profit from
scholarship. How, then, to support journals without subscriptions? The
solution was that authors should pay.

[NOTE:  MANY PARAGRAHS DELETED AND AUTHOR-PAY SUSTAINABILITY AND
PLAUSIBILITY ARE QUESTIONED IN A WELL-ARGUED PIECE]

No magic is needed. We have only to focus our attention on the real
problem.

John H. Ewing is executive director of the American Mathematical Society.

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