Re: A Useful Clarification of Harvard's OA Fund

[David Prosser <david.prosser@rluk.ac.uk>]

Phil

So, the way the fund is set up it is clear that in the specific 
case of Harvard and Tetrahedron a move to a COPE-type environment 
would not cost the library more.  Despite your calculation (which 
did not reflect the reality of Harvard) and your attempt to show 
that Darnton was wrong in suggesting that libraries could save 
money.

And I know we're using shorthand, but let's be clear.  It is not 
the case that 'HOPE pays nothing because it would require Harvard 
authors to pay their own publication fees and the library can 
keep its COPE funds untouched.'  HOPE pays nothing where 
researchers have research grants that that they can call on to 
pay publication fees.  (In the same way the library budgets 
traditionally haven't been used for page charges, colour figure 
charges, etc.  Authors pay their own charges - or, in reality, 
they use research grants.)

And the aim of the COPE fund is not to hoard money, but to pay 
for papers by unfunded researchers.  As one of the arguments 
against input-side payments has been what do un-funded authors 
do, this sounds rather sensible to me.

But that is all made much more elegantly and eloquently clear in 
Stuart's post.

David

On 5 Feb 2011, at 01:35, Philip Davis wrote:
> David,
>
> I fear that you and Stuart are misunderstanding my point about
> Darnton's  (mis)calculation of journal costs to Harvard, its
> library and its COPE  fund.  Indeed, I argue:
>
> "Given the guidelines for the COPE signatories, many of whom
> refuse to cover publication charges when the author has a grant,
> libraries could technically save money if they require their
> faculty to pay more of the freight of scholarly publishing,
> although this is simply a form of shifting -- not diminishing
> --costs.
>
> Stuart Shieber's counter-post is simply an affirmation of this
> claim.  HOPE pays nothing because it would require Harvard
> authors to pay their own publication fees and the library can
> keep its COPE funds untouched.  This is another problem that I
> point out in an earlier post (http://j.mp/amqdV3). A library fund
> that sits unused is not doing anyone any good.  Claiming that
> unspent funds is a success is like claiming that the government
> is succeeding by not spending its citizen's taxes.  It simply
> makes no sense.
>
> -Phil Davis