Re: University of Maryland's Open Access Deliberations

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

How does one even begin to measure the "economic value" of OA 
for, say, a work of literary criticism or a monograph on Hume's 
philosophy? We scholarly publishers would dearly like to believe 
that spreading our specialized content freely worldwide would be 
a benefit to civilization, but this is an article of faith for 
us, not something we have any easy way of quantifying 
economically.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


>More work needs to be done (and is being planned) on the costs
>and benefits for institutions of all sizes from the various
>scholarly publishing opportunities now available, but there is no
>indication from existing work that OA publishing will not prove
>to be good value. One important element in any such model is that
>the economic value of benefits is included, not only a simplistic
>comparison of existing library expenditure on journals with the
>cost of OA publication charges.
>
>Fred Friend
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Phil Davis" <pmd8@cornell.edu>
>To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
>Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 2:04 AM
>Subject: Re: University of Marlyland's Open Access Deliberations
>
>>  Okerson, Ann wrote:
>>
>>>  [MOD NOTE:  Surely one of the less compelling reasons for
>>>  having authors publish in OA journals is that academic
>>>  libraries, at least in the western world, would save money on
>>>  subscription prices?  Even if such a thing were known to be
>>>  true?  Is it time that we base our arguments on something other
>>>  than the dated rhetoric of the "journals pricing crisis?"]