Re: Non sequitur (Reply to David Goodman)

[adam hodgkin <adam.hodgkin@gmail.com>]

On 10/8/05, Joseph J. Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com> wrote:

> .......... I believe the vast majority of OA advocates support OA
> because they see it is an appropriate response to what they view as
> price-gouging on the part of many journals publishers. This is not the
> perspective of Steven Harnad and his followers, but it certainly is the
> point of view or hope of many librarians. But there are many other
> responses to high prices; the question is what is the most effective
> response. ..........

Pricing is not the fundamental issue, any more than cancellation policies
are the fundamental issue (cancellation being the appropriate and
inevitable response to excessive price increases).

The fundamental issue is that the technology has changed. In 20th Century
publishing, duplication and distribution were significant costs (paper,
warehousing and shelf-space) and in 21st Century publishing these costs
pretty much disappear. When these copying and distribution costs are
significant and consume scarce resources there has to be a way of
recovering and and charging for them. But this is where the web (and the
internet underlying it) has changed the landscape. It costs MORE to
prevent web users gaining access to published stuff than to let them all
have access. Open access is much, much, much more efficient than toll
access with web-based publishing.

This has been the fundamental, profound and rather swift change. You
needed to be a bit of a visionary to see the consequences of this in 1994.
Berners Lee, Ginsparg, Odlyzko and Harnad got it then; but by 2004 you
were keeping your head in the sand if you did not see this.

There remain the significant costs associated with origination:
encouragement, selection, quality control and editorial frameworks. These
costs have not disappeared and these publisher-based services are becoming
more important because there is so much more research output. In this
context of free delivery and free access to vastly more research content,
Joe Esposito is surely right to say that the University Presses (and the
Learned Societies) have a key role to play in exerting the influence of
the academy. They have been too quiet, too defensive or too sleepy, so
far.

Adam

--
Adam Hodgkin