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Potential positive spiral in transition to open access



The economics of transitioning to open access is a challenge - but not one without tremendous benefits, not only for access, but for the economics of scholarly communication, in my opinion.

This is a topic I explore in a recent blogpost, A Potential Positive Cycle: More Access, More Funds.

Abstract

Hypothesis: a process of transitioning to open access can unleash funds, creating a positive cycle of increasing access and freed funds to create more open access; the very opposite of the negative serials pricing spiral of recent decades, which featured increasing prices and decreasing access.

As support for this hypothesis, this post looks at the potential for open access if libraries were to focus on high-priced journals (US $1,000 or more for an institutional subscription), and succeed in working with their faculty to convert just 10% to a volunteer / in- kind support model.

It is estimated with such a scenario, that individual libraries could save up to $450,000 US from their budgets after spending on open access journal support is factored in. The cumulative savings for libraries are potentially huge; for example, if the ARL libraries subscribed to just a quarter of these journals each, the annual savings for ARL would be in the order of $13.8 million annually. This would only be a fraction of the savings for libraries, as ARL is only a subset of libraries, albeit large ones. The true collective savings for libraries would have to factor in libraries around the globe, including libraries in Europe and the somewhat smaller libraries in North America. If these savings were invested in further open access initatives, libraries would save even more, freeing up more funds to create more access.

For details and calculations, please see the full blogpost at: http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2007/06/potential-positive-cycle- more-access.html

While the focus of this blogpost is freeing funds for more open access, the same theoretical approach could be used to free funds to restore funding for scholarly monographs, humanities and social sciences, etc., that was lost in recent decades due to the serials pricing crisis.

Comments?

Any opinion expressed in this post is that of the author alone, and does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com