Re: Funding OA (Long-Term)

[Thomas Krichel <krichel@openlib.org>]

Ann Okerson writes

> Mr. Krichel: Could you kindly explain further your message 
> below, i.e., how it is responsive to the inquiry about 
> long-term open access funding for high quality, peer reviewed 
> journals?  My point was that libraries (particularly the larger 
> ones) are more and more being asked to contribute significant 
> sums of money for ongoing support, once OA projects have passed 
> startup funding, and that doesn't seem to me a secure source of 
> revenue.  To wit, since access is free, the incentives to keep 
> paying are not high and the financial underpinnings thus become 
> vulnerable.

I think we violently agree. Journals will come to ask libraries 
as a way to earn some money for themselves. I don't think 
libraries should pay. Journals should seek revenues not from 
libraries, who don't have an incentive to pay, but from editors' 
institutions and author fees. Editors and authors gain prestige 
from the publishing process and they should pay, be it in money 
or in kind.

> You replied that publishers need to change their journals 
> platforms to less costly ones and get free Web hosting 
> somewhere. Many small (and larger) publishers have already done 
> exactly that.

Some may have, and they will not come to ask for your support.

> And, while reasonable, the suggestion doesn't provide much help for
> the publishers of quality titles, as the rest of their non-trivial
> costs remain to be covered.

Well, it really depends how you measure quality and how you 
measure cost. I believe you can build a very high quality journal 
basically in open access without central subsidy in many 
disciplines. You can believe something else. "cost" and "quality" 
are such vague terms that anyone can believe anything.

> (Maybe we should look to our arctic-American friends for cheap 
> labor, but they seem pretty occupied where they are... see last 
> week's New Yorker cartoon, on the table of contents page. Sorry 
> I'm contributing to the bizarre metaphors: pit bulls, Barbie 
> dolls, and now penguins!)

I can't comment on the paragraph above since I don't understand
it.

Cheers,

Thomas Krichel                        mailto:krichel@openlib.org
                                  http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                              RePEc:per:1965-06-05:thomas_krichel
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