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RE: Library subscription rebates for Open Choice content

Perhaps the word "rebate" isn't the best description of what various publishers have offered to their library subscribers. A more accurate phrase would have been "reduction in subscription price for the following year." This reduction, we've been told, would be an adjustment for the various articles that authors paid to have available without charge.

I hope the publishers will chime in to tell us if or how these types of adjustments are planned and in what circumstances. Ann Okerson/Yale Library

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007, David Goodman wrote:

The other variant has been more common: that when the library
maintains a subscription, the author fees will be rebated. This
was pioneered by BMC, and I think it was one of the factors in
the willingness of research libraries to obtain membership in the
project. (The discount is of course nowhere near as great as it
used to be.)

Except in the case of dedicated endowments, libraries do not have
their own money--they parent institution allocates money for the
provision of library materials, because traditionally the library
has provided them through purchasing them & making them available
to the individual students and researchers. If instead they are
paid for by author fees, then it is altogether reasonable for the
university to pay for that, whether through the library or
through other channels. What the researchers need be concerned
with, is that their institution supply the funds for the
continuation of research journals (and other material).

What librarians need be concerned with is that funding for
traditional libraries continue at sufficient levels to maintain
their strength and usefulness. A library does not become
important because the expenses of journals are paid through
it--we just pass on the money one way or another.

On a practical plane, if limited money must be allocated directly
to individual faculty, then the library is in a relatively weak
position for resolving the inevitable disputes. Research
universities need to make the commitment that, just as they in
one way or another provide all needed material now, they will in
one way or another provide all necessary publication fees (most
of it, if present trends continue, from grant funding).

Libraries in non-research institutions by and large cannot supply
all needed materials now, and those institutions will have
similar problems later. Open access will eliminate inequity in
the access to material, but it will not eliminate inequity in the
availability of research funding.

David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.
dgoodman@princeton.edu

----- Original Message -----

[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Liblicense-L
Listowner
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 9:09 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Library subscription rebates for Open Choice content

Dear Readers:  Various of our journal contracts now state that
where authors pay for Open Choice (or something like it, i.e.,
cover costs of publication of their articles to be free to all
readers worldwide), library subscriptions will be rebated for
the equivalent.

Questions:

1.  How do you all imagine this will work in real life?

2.  Has it happened already, i.e., has Open Choice or Author
Choice or whatever, been around for long enough?  Or, will it
happen as of 2008 and if so, what are publishers preparing to
do to adjust 2008 subscriptions?

Thank you, Ann Okerson/Yale Library