Re: Author Publication Charge Debate

From: Jan Velterop <jan_at_biomedcentral.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 18:23:29 +0000

Iain,

You wrote this in THES:

> << Their [the Open Access publishers'] "business model" at present allows
> them to claim "we waive the fee for authors who say they can't afford it"
> when only 5 per cent of authors claim free publication: what happens when
> it's 50 per cent? >>

As a matter of interest, what would you say is the overall percentage of
readers (or their libraries) that can't afford the fees to get access to all
the scholarly literature they need? And what would the percentage be for
readers/libraries in developing countries?

And what do you estimate the proportion of articles from developing
countries to be in the journals of, say, the largest 25 or 50 publishers?

Thanks,

Jan Velterop
Received on Sat Jan 10 2004 - 18:23:29 GMT