From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 21:01:21 -0600

I was one of two people who made the suggestion about submission fees.
The more prestigious journals could get away with charging such a fee
just because they are prestigious and people are lining up to get
their articles accepted there. Once that practice came to be accepted
at the major journals, it would probably eventually creep over to the
less prestigious journals as well.

I have no doubt at all that submission fees could be charged by the
top university presses for book MSS submissions, and they would not
see any dropoff in the quality of MSS submitted.  Of course, more
often in book publishing than in journal publishing, MSS are solicited
by acquiring editors, and the authors of those MSS might be exempted
from such fees.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 17:17:13 -0800
>
> I don't think there is a place for libraries here, at least not over
> the long term.  The author-pays world is getting competitive.  In
> addition to PLOS, Hindawi, and BioMed Central, we have services from
> (among others) Wiley and Sage, and odd hybrids ("cascading peer
> review") at BMJ.  And let's not forget the advent of the service by
> scientists for scientists (but not assuredly by or for economists)
> eLife, which is proposing to charge no author fees--until they figure
> out a business model.  So  you will have downward pricing pressure
> even as the need to provide enhanced services grows.  How can
> libraries compete here?
>
> Of course, they may choose not to compete; they may choose to get the
> faculty senate to mandate that authors at their institution use the
> library's service first.  This would be an enforced monopoly.  The
> service level would be comparable to what you get at the Division of
> Motor Vehicles.
>
> There was an earlier comment on this thread (which I lost, alas) to
> the effect that one way to build an author-pays service is with a fee
> for submission rather than for publication.  This is a great idea, and
> in a world without ruinous competition (John D. Rockefeller's phrase),
> it would work beautifully, as it aligns the cost to authors with the
> actual cost of delivering the service.  But what happens when your
> competitor offers a free Christmas promotion?  Of if eLife takes 10
> years to figure out a business model?  In a competitive market, you
> can never be smarter than your stupidest competitor, and if that
> competitor wants to give away the store, I can see your store loaded
> onto someone else's truck.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 4:24 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>  From: "Bargheer, Margo Friederike" <[log in to unmask]>
>>  Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 01:36:32 +0100
>>
>>
>>  Is there a role for libraries in an Open Access model funded at the
>>  production side, e.g. "author paid"?
>>
>>  Indeed there is, it's done already, and this role has several aspects
>>  to it. Informing authors about this emerging market, supporting them
>>  in their new economic role, delivering bibliometrical data for
>>  evaluation systems based on publications (a system however that as a
>>  social scientist I see as flawed), managing central publication funds,
>>  negotiating agreements between publishers and institutions, running
>>  complementary infrastructure and so on.
>>
>>  Best
>>  Margo Bargheer
>>
>>  Electronic Publishing
>>  SUB Göttingen
>>  Margo Bargheer
>>  +49 1515 288 1644



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