RE: universities experiment with paying OA fees

[Karl Bridges <kbridges@uvm.edu>]

I guess if you see being "cost-effective" as the highest value 
Wal-Mart is your best model.  However, there are a whole host of 
other values that matter just as much -- quality of service, 
caring for the user, etc.

I think many of us have seen the idea of pushing 
cost-effectiveness at the expense of everything else in our 
institutions.  I would say many of us are somewhat dubious about 
the outcomes resulting from that.

Karl Bridges


Quoting David Prosser <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>:

> Jim:  Your WalMart comparison is interesting, but I draw a
> different conclusion from it than you do.
>
> The first thing to note is that for the publishing process the
> most important input is the intellectual.  Editors and reviewers
> have no greater incentive to work with a big publisher than they
> do with a small society publisher.  The ability to extract
> intellectual effort from the community is not one that the big
> publishers through their market position can leverage.
>
> Where they can dominate is in sales and marketing.  Big
> publishers can go to individual libraries and consortia and offer
> large bundles, in multi-year packages that tie-in large
> percentages of the libraries' budgets.  They can employ large
> sales-forces to ensure that their products continue to be
> purchased by the consortia.  Small publishers find it harder to
> compete as they do not have the sales-forces and they do not have
> the bundles.  So, it is the current big-deal subscription model
> that encourages WalMart-type behaviour and is leading to the
> consolidation of the market.  We can see this in the trend for
> small and society publishers to move away from independence - a
> move that has nothing to do with open access.
>
> Open access with input fees allows publishers to compete on the
> level of author services - something that small and society
> publisher have traditionally been very good at.  Rather than
> being the death-knell for society publishers it could be their
> best chance of survival - especially compared to the current
> big-deal environment.
>
> Now if we just replace the current model where users (authors and
> readers) are insulated from the subscription costs of journals to
> a new model where users are insulated from publication charges
> then the possibilities of generating a functional market will be
> diminished and small publishers will be disadvantaged as they
> will find it harder to compete against big publisher publication
> charge big-deals (of the 'For a yearly payment of x hundred
> thousand dollars the fees for publishing in any of publisher y's
> 1000 journals are covered for all researchers at institution z'
> type).  That is why it is important that the prices become
> transparent to the users and they become more closely integrated
> with the decision making.
>
> (I should add as an aside that I do think there are places where
> small and society publishers could usefully come together more in
> cooperatives to share development of submission systems,
> publishing platforms and such like. That would provide them with
> some economies of scale while allowing them to concentrate on
> what they are best at - selection and certification.  There have
> been some efforts in this direction - e.g. BioOne - but I would
> like to see more.)
>
> David Prosser
> SPARC Europe
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of James J. O'Donnell
> Sent: 09 June 2008 22:27
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: universities experiment with paying OA fees
>
> I have extracted a few points below from Mr. Hindawi's message,
> to seek clarification and make a comment.
>
> 1.  Clarification:  I am baffled by the repeated assertions here
> extracted and underlying the whole posting that publishers today
> live in an inefficient market in which "no one cares or does
> anything" about costs, and that a Gold OA market will become
> magically efficient.
>
> Given that in this new market, at the urging of the Gold OA
> enthusiasts, authors will be *required* to purchase the services
> of publishers (by government or publishers' mandates), the
> natural expectation would be that publishers would be in the
> catbird seat and able to charge as much as the market would bear.
> If *that* force is not overwhelming, at any rate I do not see
> what force will transform the marketplace for the better.  Nor do
> I see, as a matter of cold fact, any evidence today of publishers
> who don't care about costs!
>
> 2.  Comment:  re the wonder of capitalism hymned by Mr. Hindawi
> in the eradication of less effective competitors.  That is an
> ideological assertion, where a moment's thought would suggest
> many cases where the iron law of the market destroys things that
> are of great value.  The not-for-profit sector (that's
> universities, research institutes, and many publishers) enjoys
> government protection in part precisely because the entities
> there are judged unlikely to flourish if subjected to the full
> power wonderful capitalist market.
>
> One thing we *do* see in relatively free markets is that the most
> cost-effective enterprises are the huge multinationals that face
> the least restriction (let's say WalMart:  think of your own
> publishing equivalent) and the least cost-effective are the
> charming neighborhood shoppes with distinctive products and
> services.  I wonder if Mr. Hindawi looks forward to the
> eradication of many small publishers and the triumph of large
> international enterprises?
>
> Jim O'Donnell
> Georgetown U.
>
> On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 7:55 PM,
> Ahmed Hindawi <ahmed.hindawi@hindawi.com> wrote:
>
>> They both produce leading publications in their
>> fields. How can they both survive? They can and do in today's
>> inefficient market where no one cares or does anything about the
>> cost.
>
> <snip>
>
>> In an efficient market, the more cost effective publishers will get
>> more market share (which will lower the total cost) and will put
>> huge pressure on less cost effective publishers to lower their
>> cost (which will lower the total cost).
>>
>
> <snip>
>
>> In a Gold OA world where price actually matters, more efficient
>> publishers will have their day. They will wipe their less
>> efficient competitors out of the market. And it is a wonderful
>> thing for all of us, isn't it? It is what efficient markets bring
>> to the society. It is capitalism at its best.