Re: A Prophylactic Against the Edentation of the RCUK Policy Proposal

From: J.F.B.Rowland <J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK>
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 09:49:34 +0100

While in general I agree with Stevan's comments about Sally Morris's
comments, it is important to remember that Sally is spokesperson for an
organisation of not-for-profit scholarly publishers, many of them small. I
strongly support the institutional repository movement, and I am pleased at
the RCUK statement. Big publishers - for-profit or not-for-profit - will no
doubt look after their own interests robustly. However, I think there is a
non-trivial problem for the medium- to long-term viability of the smaller
learned society publishers. I approve of those organisations too, and I
don't want to see them driven to the wall - their disappearance would be
damaging to the scholarly community. A business model, or preferably a
range of possible business models, needs to be found that will enable these
organisations to prosper in a future environment dominated by OA
repositories. I don't think that problem is near solution yet.

Fytton Rowland, Loughborough University
Received on Tue Jul 05 2005 - 09:49:34 BST