Re: Open Choice is a Trojan Horse for Open Access Mandates

From: David Goodman <dgoodman_at_Princeton.EDU>
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 17:44:22 -0400

Dana,

the institutions contributing more articles are also the ones
with the largest amount of grant funding--as the two
necessarily go together.

Most previous OA Journal proposals would have
required the simultaneous switch of
the funding arrangements for all universities and all funders,
 and could rightly be critized for such unlikelihood.

The significance of "OA by the Article" is that it can be
done one funder at a time, or one university at a time, or
even one department at a time.
For Example, if the Wellcome is prepared to continue
sufficient extra payment for OA for all of its grants,
that's a start. (Even here, it would need to be supplemented
by university funds since they provide enough for 1 or
2 papers a year, and most substantial grants produce more. )

As another source of funding, I remember that my NIH postdoctoral fellowship
came with what was then a very significant $1000 per year discretionary
fund. Similarly, new faculty are normally given a substantial amount of money by
 the university to outfit their lab, and often to construct their special facilities.
I've known it to include a research quality greenhouse.
At some rich universities they are also guaranteed one (or even two) years of
leave before the tenure evaluation. They could reasonably also
receive funding for the first few papers. Successful university departments are
ingenious in finding money--probably more ingenious than most libraries.

There's been enough
started now to keep things going for a while. If at this time next year only OUP
has had enough Sponsored OA to be able to reduce prices,
we'll know to try something else.

Think of it! Publishers demonstrating their success by lowering prices!

This is enough for now, and I'll join this thread again next summer.


David Goodman, Ph.D.

Bibliographer and Research Librarian
Princeton University Library
(Retired)
dgoodman_at_princeton.edu



----- Original Message -----
From: Dana Roth <dzrlib_at_LIBRARY.CALTECH.EDU>
Date: Tuesday, September 5, 2006 4:10 pm
Subject: Re: [AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM] Open Choice is a Trojan Horse for Open Access Mandates
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG

> However, some institutions contribute many more articles than others.
> Doesn't this clearly suggest that a complete transition to OA will
> result in a major cost shift to producers? ... and also completely
> failsto address the dramatic difference between the OA costs of non-
> profitand commercially published articles.
>
> Dana Roth
> Caltech
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
> [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-
> FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On
> Behalf Of Velterop, Jan Springer UK
> Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 8:24 AM
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: Re: Open Choice is a Trojan Horse for Open Access Mandates
>
> Stevan Harnad asks:
> >
> > Why should funders pay a penny more now, when all publication
> costs
> > are still being paid out of institutional subscriptions?
>
> And who funds the institutions to pay for subscriptions? The very same
> funders! They are paying right now. All I'm suggesting is that they
> use their money to support open access publishing directly. More
> money? The
> same money. No new or extra money.
>
> >
> > (Jan, your arguments are awfully familiar, and they sound very
> much
> > like those of the non-OA publisher lobby that has been opposing
> the OA
>
> > self-archiving mandates...)
>
> Maybe it's time you read my comments more carefully.
>
> Jan Velterop
>
Received on Tue Sep 05 2006 - 22:52:35 BST