[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Funding OA (Long Term)

Ann Okerson wrote:
To add to Peter Suber's prognoses for OA for 2007: I predict that requests to (large? all?) libraries for significant funds to sustain quality OA projects or journals that were begun as startups will grow (and grow). The startup funding will end or the home institution will be unable to continue to cover the entire costs of publication. This is not going to be true for *all* OA publications, but it will be true for many.

In January, we received 3 such requests within one week, none of them at the (relatively low) level of regular journal subscriptions. The plan was that by asking a relatively small number of large institutions, these publishers would simplify billing and the resources would (continue to be) available for free worldwide. In our institution we can and will assess such requests on a one-by-one basis and might be able to support some.

This next phase of OA projects (let's call it long-term financial viability or sustainability) is complicated and vexing: (1) all now appreciate better the extent of the running costs of a resource that we would like to be freely available to all; and (2) we can think of almost nowhere else to go for those continuing costs except to libraries, who get their money from users. The difference now is that instead of going to many many libraries, requesters are focusing on a few.

To one of the inquirers, a very good e-journal, we responded by asking whether it would be possible to charge a subscription fee, thus spreading out the costs among this fine title's many readers. But we heard that spreading out costs among many readers is costly for the publisher. Instead, perhaps everyone could agree to pay author charges of $1500 per article? As this is a journal in the information-library arena, such a charge represents an unfunded expense at an order of magnitude price higher than for other journals in our field and is unrealistic.

I would welcome hearing from libraries about how they might be handling this new set of requests and wherein realistic long-term solutions could lie. I'm pretty sure it's not in asking libraries with bigger budgets for more and more financial support.
[snip]

Kudos to Yale for considering some such requests!

Rest assured that it is not only, or necessarily, primarily large
research libraries who are making open access happen. Scholars in
developing countries are doing their best to make their own work open
access.

Examples of major projects:

Scielo - Scientific Electronic Library Online - open access journals
from Latin American countries, and Spain:
http://www.scielo.org/index.php?lang=en

Bioline International - a project designed to assist publishers in
developing countries to produce high quality scholarly publications
(the predominant trend, by far, is OA):
http://www.bioline.org.br/

Open Journal Systems (OJS) - free, open source software for journal
publishing. Released a few years ago, now widely used around the
globe, in developed and developing countries alike. Journals do not
have to follow an open access business model, but this is the most
common.
http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs
[Disclosure: SFU Library is a partner in the Public Knowledge
Project, which is responsible for OJS. I work for SFU Library,
although not on this project].

In summary - the smaller players in the developing world are doing their bit! If the large research libraries in the developed world can help out by committing to a few projects, too - as Yale is considering - we'll have OA in no time at all.

One thought: it would be helpful for many reasons for smaller libraries in the developed world to find a role in the transition to OA. Perhaps library consortia can play a key role here?

Heather G. Morrison
Project Coordinator
BC Electronic Library Network
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Email: heatherm@eln.bc.ca
Web: http://www.eln.bc.ca