RE: Suber's refutation of universities paying more for OA

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

Willliam Walters writes:

I'd question whether the no-fee journals, which operate largely 
on a volunteer basis, can handle the volume of research output 
that would be required in a truly Open Access environment.

Comments:

Good question, William!

No-fee journals operate on a variety of business models, from 
volunteering to subsidies from various sources to advertising 
revenues to combinations. In this post, I will focus on a 
membership fee subsidy approach, for learned societies and 
associations.

Many traditional journals produced by societies and associations 
have always operated on a subsidy basis, with the subsidy funding 
coming from such sources as membership fees and conferences.

A large and wealthy association could no doubt subsidize a very 
substantial open access publishing program, if it chose to do so.

Picture, for example, how many journals and articles the largest 
scientist organization in the world could publish OA, if they 
chose.

According to their web site, the American Chemical Society is the 
world's largest scientific society, with 158,000 members.  If $10 
from every membership were devoted to OA publishing, this would 
create an annual subsidy fund of over $1.5 million per year.

It is not at all out of the question for an organization of this 
size to find this kind of money internally, without having to 
raise membership fees a penny.

Considering how important the benefits of open access are, 
perhaps the ACS should give this some thought.

If any of the organizations I belong to were to ask me if this 
were a suitable use of my membership funding, I would not 
hesitate for a second to say yes.

Heather G. Morrison
http://chemistswithoutborders.blogspot.com