Stern Open Access Article in InfoToday

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Open Access or Differential Pricing for Journals: The Road Best Traveled?
by David Stern

INTRODUCTION

Open access (OA) is becoming a reality, with new cost models under
development. The various cost models will have serious short- and
long-term implications for libraries and dangerously impact the scholarly
communication network. I believe that the adoption of the OA model for
journals will create serious instabilities within the existing scholarly
publication industry. OA, as a business model, is neither necessary nor
desirable. With or without the often-discussed author charges approach, it
would be almost impossible to obtain the same amount of total revenue
through selected libraries as now exists from the much larger base of
library subscriptions. Tiered or differential pricing (and services) among
the existing subscribers would be a far more logical approach to
supporting a modified scholarly journal distribution network.

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