Re: Comparing Institutional Membership to Per-Article Payment

[David Stern <david.e.stern@yale.edu>]

A few quick comments to clarify Chuck's apparent belief that we support
wide commercial distribution:

1. We all want the free distribution of scholarly information, with costs
equal to expenses, and no profit taken for supporting the peer review
network. We are simply stating that all players should pay a fair share of
the real costs. Differential pricing is the best way to provide indirect
funding -- and eventual direct funding would remove the additional
expenses of redirecting this money through redundant paths.

2. The value is in the free distribution without commercial hinderance;
the reality is we need to move to that plan with fair infrastructure
creation and support. Yale has does not have a moral imperative to
subsidize corporate readers who benefit from the free exchange of
information.  Societies, universities, and government must work together
to create a new platform and peer review support mechanism. There are
pieces out there:  inexpensive servers, peer review software, foundations
willing to pay for part of the cost. Many of today's Open Access journals
do provide free access, but do not provide the infrastructure required to
provide a stable non-commercial peer review and distribution network. We
are emphasizing the need for a realistic support structure before we move
toward an unrealistic transitional model.

3. Society expenses for other operations (education, lobbying, etc) should
be supported by member dues and direct government funding. Societies
should migrate from "hidden" indirect journal subsidies to direct payments
based upon the recognition of the public good of supporting such efforts.

David Stern
Director of Science Libraries
Yale University


At 12:35 PM 4/20/2005, you wrote:
> I suggest that smaller institutions pay much more per article usage
> (though they need much of the same research), than larger research
> institutions and larger institutions may have other reasons to support a
> system that costs them slightly more-- in order to increase exposure to
> research as a public good.
>
> Davis and Stern wrote on liblicense-l:
>
> Comparing Institutional Membership to Per-Article Payment in an Open
> Access Model, by Philip Davis and David Stern
>
> April 14, 2005
>
> "Is it cheaper in an Open Access producer-pays model to take an
> institutional membership over paying per article published? The results of
> this analysis of two research institutions suggests that institutionscould
> save money if they paid by the article."
>
> And concluded:
>
> "The question of who will subsidize Open Access producer-pays publishing
> is significant if libraries cannot justify their memberships on financial
> grounds. This will be especially true for smaller institutions that
> publish few (if any) articles. Unlike the subscription model, there is
> little risk of losing access if a membership is not renewed. Subvention
> from foundations and other sources may be necessary to support the
> producer-pays model"
>
> ***
>
> COMMENT:  This analysis ignores that under the current model and a
> proposed author pays model smaller institutions- in terms of use per
> article of the research literatures, subsidize cost per use at larger
> institutions like Yale and Cornell. Smaller institutions generally pay
> more per use than larger institutions covering the same field. Payment by
> the article is NOT equal payment in an "author or institution pays"
> system.  Phil's own research examining usage of ACS journals/articles
> suggests a massive disparity between the usage at a Cornell and at UNC
> Charlotte.  SOME publisher's try to make some adjustment for this
> disparity with various forms of differential pricing (which is why my
> Elsevier Science Direct contract is less expensive than that of larger
> institutions while providing similar coverage). However the basic
> disparity in cost is still very large on a per use basis.  This is true in
> both paper and e-based systems for every comparable usage measure I've
> seen to date. My own institution's usage data is posted at :
> http://library.uncc.edu/display/?dept=technical&format=open&page=1839
>
> There is another question that is hovering around that has not been
> addressed. Yale, and Cornell, with larger investments in research, and
> arguably more cited research than many smaller institutions may have a
> moral reason to be willing to pay more per "article" to support open
> access. In fact, there is a very good argument to be made that shifting
> the cost of publishing to the institutions that publish and also use the
> system the most means that smaller institutions with less publications and
> less use of the system will have greater access, a good that Yale and
> Cornell might consciously determine is a significant public good.
>
> The researcher at UNC Charlotte, to be productive and contribute to a
> particular field MUST have access to the same articles that a researcher
> at Cornell or Yale has, ultimately, and this has led to smaller
> institutions spending much higher portions of their overall budgets for
> research journals than larger institutions. If a subscription to Brain
> Research is necessary at a smaller institution, it would take a larger
> percentage of that budget than it does Yale's.
>
> So Yale and Cornell and by extension all large research operations have to
> make a value decision, not just a monetary decision. And that value
> decision, access to the most important research is a social good, not just
> a matter of dollars and cents to a single research university's library.
> Open access, however it is achieved, is such a powerful good as shown by
> usage data and citation analysis as Harnad et. al. have shown repeatedly,
> how can a world leading institution continue to argue for hiding its
> research behind prohibitively expensive toll barriers?
>
> Chuck Hamaker
> Associate University Librarian Collections and Technical Services
> Atkins Library
> University of North Carolina Charlotte
> Charlotte, NC 28223
> phone 704 687-2825