RE: Calculating the cost: a continuation

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

This is not intended as a reply or rejoinder to anyone, but rather a
continuation of PMD's argument in the light of TSP's and PB's.

It is obvious that we cannot increase the amount of money by moving it
around; we need to either convince the funders of the various components
of our system that an increase is needed, or we can reduce the overall
system costs. This is totally independent in principle of who pays for
what, except that there might be strategically or technically preferable
places for different actions.

I think the best chance for increased funding comes from the combination
of funds traditionally allotted to the library with funds traditionally
allotting to publishing grant results. I think that the ultimate funders
of both might be willing to help the system further, if they thought it
would produce better results, I agree that one of the best arguments is
access. Using that argument we can add funds currently devoted by smaller
institutions to the access to subsets of the desirable titles by smaller
institutions as well possible funding devoted specifically to public
access.

I suggest that the greatest defect of any such plan is the lack of
coordination.  I would like to see the libraries and the provosts and the
researchers of academic institutions join in a common purpose; if they
did, they would surely get the cooperation of at least the non-profit
publishers. Thirty years of academic life suggests that we will never see
this.
 
I would like to see the government science-supporting agencies of the
major publishing (and research) countries cooperate in finding financial
and other inducements to this plan. Recent OA developments involving the
US and UK governments would suggest that we will also never see this
(except that the the recent JISC funding of OA publishers shows an
unexpected willingness, at least in principle). I do not worry about
government support for publishing; it is as rational as government support
for research. Fortunately, just as non-governmental organizations can and
do support research, they can and will support publishing.  I agree that
we are better off with a model that does not turn the NIH into the sole
publisher.

Costs can be reduced, OA or no OA, as we all know from the example of the
American Physical Society.  The relevance to OA is that a less expensive
system is easier to fund; the less the cost, the fewer necessary
contributing bodies.  It is unrealistic to think that the cost can be low
enough to be financed without cooperation or subsidy. (Indeed, the amounts
JISC thought necessary, just as the amounts SPARC did earlier, are
sufficiently high to give pause.)

To the extent societies have lower costs and better journals, they are in
a more favorable position.  To the extent that they are (or should be)
operated in the interests of their members, there is an inherent common
ground, with the same people being authors, readers, editors, and
publishers. I would like to be able to say they they act to their overall
best interest in all the roles, but that doesn't happen either.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu