Re: Reply to David Prosser

["\"FrederickFriend\"" <ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk>]

I applaud Joe's call for more evidence from the NFP publishers. 
It would be good, for example, to know what percentage of their 
surpluses they plough back into bursaries etc. I am prepared to 
believe that this "science dividend" is important, but if we are 
to take account of it in the move towards OA we do need to know 
how big a factor it is. From JISC's experience with NFPs in Mary 
Waltham's study for us on learned society business models, I know 
that societies are reluctant to open up their accounts, but 
surely they could trust an independent third party with the 
information.

To answer the point about the effect of "big deals", they harm 
NFPs in transferring library money away from individual 
subscriptions (often NFPs) into block subscriptions from the 
major (usually commercial) publishers. Yes, libraries pushed for 
these "big deals" but are now beginning to realise the 
disadvantage in locking up a large proportion of their budgets.

Fred Friend
JISC Scholarly Communication Consultant
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
E-mail ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk