Bear in mind that the fact that something is free to both authors and readers does not mean that it has no costs.
ArXiV, even though it is a preprint repository and does not provide managed peer review, nevertheless has costs.
Those costs are, I believe, supported by Cornell University.
The Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemisry
http://bjoc.beilstein-journals.org/ (like many open access journals)
is free to both authors and readers, and takes care of peer review. It has significant costs, but those costs are covered by the Beilstein Institut.
Even a journal run on a shoestring by a group of academics, on a web server sitting under their desks, also has costs in terms of the time that the academics spend on the adminstrative and technical aspects of running the journal, as opposed to working on their day job.
Matt Cockerill
==
Matthew Cockerill Publisher
BioMed Central (
http://www.biomedcentral.com/ )
34-42, Cleveland Street
London
W1T 4LB
UK
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
> [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]On
> Behalf Of Armbruster, Chris
> Sent: 26 October 2006 10:16
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: Re: costs of publishing
>
>
> Dear Donat, potentially the costs for publishinhg are 0 -
> services like Arxiv, SSRN and RePEc are free to authors and readers:
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=434782
> Cyberscience and the Knowledge-based Economy, Open Access and
> Trade Publishing: From Contradiction to Compatibility with
> Nonexclusive Copyright Licensing
> Chris Armbruster
> Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (Visiting Fellow),
> European University Institute
> Date posted to database: October 17, 2006
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Scientist Open Access Forum on behalf of Donat Agosti
> Sent: Thu 26/10/2006 10:25
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: costs of publishing
>
> Are there any figures out, how much publishing costs
> respective the entire
> costs of research?
>
> Specifically, I would like to know:
> 1. From a research grant, what is an average (probably by
> research area
> varying) number of publications produced? Or how many publications are
> produced in a year by NSF, NIH, Wellcome Trust at what total
> funding budget?
> 2. How does the number of publications correlate with the
> size of a grant?
> 3. What are the approximate cost of the production, including
> dissemination
> of the final product, ie publication, both printed and electronically?
> 4. Thus it might be possible to come up with a relative
> figure how much is
> needed to produce the content of a publication?
> 5. Are there figure on the revenues generated by a publication?
>
>
> With best thanks for some insights
>
> Donat
>
>
>
> Dr. Donat Agosti
> Science Consultant
> Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and
> Naturmuseum der
> Burgergemeinde Bern
> Email: agosti_at_amnh.org
> Web: http://antbase.org
> Blog: http://biodivcontext.blogspot.com/
> Skype: agostileu
> CV
> Current Location
> Dalmaziquai 45
> 3005 Bern
> Switzerland
> +41-31-351 7152
>
Received on Thu Oct 26 2006 - 12:39:52 BST