Usage stats, or: how I became an OA advocate

[heatherm@eln.bc.ca]

Among the more compelling reasons for open access are...the alternatives.  
One such is employing usage statistics as an economic factor, whether in
purchase or cancellation decisions, or per-use pricing. To paraphrase
Andrew Odlyzkow: usage based pricing can be very effective: the trouble
is, you might not like the effects. Among the potential effects of
usage-based pricing are disincentives to use, less diversity and more
conservatism in scholasticism.

More comments and a link to a preprint of a book chapter I've written on
the subject can be found in my blog at:
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2005/09/usage-statistics-as-economic-factor-in.html

Many thanks to Liblicense discussion participants, whose comments on usage
statistics were an inspiration for this book chapter, and one of the
factors that helped to make me a dedicated open access advocate.

cheers,

Heather G. Morrison