RE: Take it all for a yes, and on to Q.2a.

[<Toby.GREEN@oecd.org>]

Richard,

While doing some coppicing last weekend, I thought about your question 1 and
realised there was another answer - if there is an unlimited amount of money
available, why not give it to readers so they can buy what they need without
any limits? This would give the same result as unlimited author-side payments
but not disrupt the current publishing system.

Now, Q2a - I think the question would be more interesting if you looked
outside the relatively well-funded area of biomedical research where it is
well known that publishing costs are only a small proportion of total funding
(the same being true in physics and other 'big' sciences). Why not try
economics or education or any of the social sciences or humanities where
research funding is limited?

Toby

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Feinman
Sent: 27 June, 2006 2:38 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Take it all for a yes, and on to Q.2a.


I didn't mean it to be a mental exercise.  The point was to determine if we
all agree that OA is desirable.  In the past, on this list and elsewhere,
people have made the argument that it is not needed -- we have all the
information we need, or the general public would be hurt by too much
information;we need to edit for them., etc. It has struck me and others, that
these didn't make sense, or were compromised by conflicts of interest.  I
asked originally whether any of these arguments made sense except for people
who stood to gain from maintaining the current system and what argument
against OA's desirability.  The idea is that you can't ask about feasibility,
unless you know whether you want to do it.

It thought it was pretty simple idea.  Should we build an atomic bomb, should
we have the bathroom redone, etc.?  Once you know whether you want to do it,
you can ask how much it costs or how hard it is to do or whether it is even
possible, but first you have to know if you want to do it.  A what if
question, if you like,or as Nietzsche put it: we can do with any how if we
have a why. The fact that hardly anybody wanted to play and insisted that I
cannot even pose the question, and that it is in the ballpark with world
peace and end to world hunger, suggests we all agree it is desirable to have
OA.  So, I will take if for a yes.  Now we can go on to Q.2

Q. 2. Richard Roberts, among others, has suggested that the money currently
spent on publishing only needs to be re-directed towards OA. Now, since
everybody seems to agree that author-pays means largely author's grant-pays
and since NIH is most accessible and major funder in
biomedicinee:
2a. Is it possible to find out how what per centage of the NIH research
grants go for author page charges, subscriptions, if anybody still buys
reprints and other costs that are directed to publishing?


Richard D. Feinman, Professor of Biochemistry
(718) 871-1374
FAX: (718) 270-3316