From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:19:08 -0600


By the same token, money to fund OA is not unlimited either, and when
times are tough, decisions will be made about whose articles get
published through author-side payments. This will necessarily limit
the supply of articles to users, no less than toll-access charges do,
though in another manner.  OA, as everyone should know by this time,
is not free; somebody has to pay for it, and that somebody--whether an
individual author or an institutional source--is affected by economic
pressures just as everyone else is.

Sandy Thatcher



> From: Heather Morrison <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:02:16 -0800
>
>
> Usage-based pricing makes sense for resources that are limited in
> nature, such as electricity or gas. As these kinds of resources become
> more scarce, prices go up, providing a necessary disincentive to
> usage.
>
> For scholarly knowledge in electronic form, usage-based pricing such
> as pay by the drink or pay per view, is at the very best a stopgap
> measure to address the high cost of subscriptions. However, as a
> default model this presents significant challenges for education and
> for scholarship.
>
> When we pay by the use, the research of the first and second year
> students are likely to be seen as a cost item, and cut in times of
> hardship. Similarly, pay-per-use is a reason to turn away the walk-in
> user. Odlyzko found (with respect to internet usage) that cost-per-use
> discourages usage, even at very low cost-per-use rates. In scholarly
> terms, this is discouraging reading and research.
>
> Examples of how libraries use usage-based pricing to discourage
> excessive use are photocopier / printing costs and ILL fees.
>
> If scholarly articles and journals are assessed by usage, this will
> work against areas with fewer researchers. Without outlets for
> publication, there could be impacts on whole fields. Consider, for
> example, how many researchers are likely to be studying and reading
> about any one endangered species (excluding the popular and cute).
>
> This is a topic I write about in some depth in this book chapter
> (includes the Odlyzko citation):
> http://summit.sfu.ca/item/439
>
> My perspective is that there is point in moving to pay-per-use when
> open access is growing so rapidly that even commercial publishers are
> now moving to compete in this arena.
>
> best,
>
> Heather Morrison