Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)

From: Tom Cochrane <t.cochrane_at_QUT.EDU.AU>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 08:02:38 +1000

At 02:53 PM 22/07/2003 -0400, David Goodman wrote:


>The reason why librarians must be concerned about this, is the
>unfortunate
>probability that the money saved from library acquisitions will not be
>used to finance the publication system, but for
>general university administration. This is not an improvement
>over the present, where a considerable part of the expense is used for
>general administrative purposes by the publishers.
>This explains why many libraries are willing to pay subscriptions to
>alternative publishers: the basic rule of library budgeting is that if
>you
>do not spend all the money, you will lose it forever.


I don't think you should underestimate the capacity of university
Presidents and senior administrators to understand this problem. They would
be quite capable of understanding any argument about a redirection or
repurposing of some of it, especially if it is a widely developing trend.

Equally, if the dollars in our library budget committed to the give away
literature could be released for greater acquisition of the non give away,
most would be very pleased at this redeployment.

So would the publishers of the non give away material.

So would authors who have dependence in some measure on royalty income.

Tom


************************************************************************

TOM COCHRANE
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Technology, Information and Learning Support)
Queensland University of Technology
GPO Box 2434
Brisbane Qld 4001
Australia
Received on Wed Jul 23 2003 - 23:02:38 BST