Re: Critique of OA metric

[Sandy Thatcher <sgt3@psu.edu>]

Phil doesn't mention this, but one wonders why Shieber thought he 
could draw conclusions about OA STM journal publishing by looking 
at what happens in trade book publishing.  Not only is book 
publishing VERY different from journal publishing, but it is even 
VERY different from most of the publishing that academic presses 
do.

Moreover, in terms of subsidies requested from authors, both 
vanity academic publishers and the best university presses ask 
for subsidies; the main difference is that the former request 
them routinely, and they usually have to come out of the authors' 
own pocket, whereas for the latter subsidies are requested only 
when truly needed to make publication of a book feasible and they 
often come from departmental or foundation funds, not the authors 
directly. But, in any event, for university presses anyway, there 
is no correlation at all between the amount of subsidy required 
and the quality of the publication.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University

>In another of his series of fine posts, Phil Davis has a good
>critique of some of the metrics for OA that are coming out of
>Harvard.  Definitely worth a look:
>
>http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/
>
>Joe Esposito