Re: The Logic of Page Charges to Free the Journal Literature

From: Paul M. Gherman <Gherman_at_LIBRARY.VANDERBILT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 18:12:29 +0100

Peter,

I began thinking exactly as you suggest. Institutions
paying the charges for their own faculty from library
journals budgets. But then I ran the numbers. Vanderbilt
spends 1.8 million a year on journal subscription, not
all serials. We have 1500 faculty. At a minor charge of
$1,000 per article if each faculty member published one
article per year, our budget would quickly be gone. Now
from what I have heard, $1,000 per article to cover review
and editing is at the very low end of the scale. I have
found that many of our faculty publish three articles per
year, and those at Johns Hopkins 7 per year. I do not think
all those institutions where very few faculty publish
should get a free ride while the premier universities carry
the full load.

And as for a SPARC like organization taking on the role I
mentioned, the serials industry has supported jobbers like
this ie Faxon, Ebsco, Blackwells as subscription agents for
publishers for many years. Establishing a front-end payment
system is no different.


Paul M. Gherman
University Librarian
611B General Library
419 21st Avenue South
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37240
Office: (615) 322-7120
Fax: (615) 343-8279
gherman_at_library.vanderbilt.edu
Received on Wed Feb 10 1999 - 19:17:43 GMT