From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:01:24 -0600

I wish people would not make such generalizations as "the goal of
publishing is to make a profit" when that is manifestly untrue for a
large number of scholarly publishers, including university presses,
society publishers, and publishers attached to NGOs (like the World
Bank and OECD).

I think it is likely that libraries will have even less "control" in
the OA environment than they have had in the TA environment. APCs will
be paid by a wide range of entities, among which libraries will likely
not be the dominant source. Foundations, which have never been
involved directly in the market before, are already playing a
significant role, for instance. I thus do not foresee much chance of
any one source of OA funding as having the ability to keep costs down.

Sandy Thatcher



At 3:40 PM -0500 11/29/12, LIBLICENSE wrote:

> From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]
> Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:28:04 +0400
>
> Hi All
>
> Joe notes:
>
>> I am sure that I am not the only person who has observed that the
>> total cost of scholarly material has increased since the advent of
>> open access publications.  And it will continue to grow.  Even if it's
>> true that OA could cut costs by 15%, what does that mean if research
>> increases by 50%?
>
> I think, perhaps, the starting point is to tease out words like
> "costs."  There are costs to the publisher, and there are costs to the
> consumer (mainly, the libraries) - the costs to the consumer, though,
> are mainly based on _charges_ BY the publisher TO the consumer.
>
> In an ideal world, charges to the consumer will increase only if the
> publisher's costs increase. In reality, there is virtually no
> relationship between the two.  (In any business, charges to the
> customer are determined almost exclusively by supply-and-demand; at
> base level, the questions are: how much is the consumer prepared to
> pay for this, and how many consumers are prepared to pay this amount?
> There is nothing evil about this - this is how a "good" business
> operates, and publishing is a business, not a service or a charity.
> The goal of publishing is to make a profit, and the consumer is merely
> a means to achieving that goal.  As I say, there is nothing
> particularly evil (or strange) about this - it is the business model
> that is repeated around the world.)
>
> So, when Joe speaks of the rise in the cost of scholarly material, are
> we talking about the rise in _producing_ that material, or the rise in
> the charges to the the consumer to _access_ that material?
>
> The reason it's important to know these is that consumers have very
> little control over the costs of producing and publishing research.
> Over the charges, however, the consumers have tremendous control, but
> only if they work together.  One library saying "No, we will not pay
> those charges" means little.  100 libraries saying the same thing
> becomes a different matter entirely.
>
> So, if libraries take a little control, and ensure that their charges
> do not rise exorbitantly, then the impact of OA savings may be more
> significant.  Of course, to do this, you would need to know exactly
> how much other libraries are paying for that product, and then begin
> working together.  Mmmmm.  Until that happens, however, OA will have
> very little impact on the costs of running a library, because, as
> sales of Non-OA research journals drop in terms of units, publishers
> will simply increase the charges for those units that _are_ sold, so
> that profits hold firm and increase.  Which, as I read Joe's comment,
> is exactly what is happening right now.
>
>
> Regards
>
> Ken
>
> Dr. Ken Masters
> Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
> Medical Education Unit
> College of Medicine & Health Sciences
> Sultan Qaboos University
> Sultanate of Oman
> E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education
>
>
> On 29 November 2012 02:57, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>  From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
>>  Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:45:13 -0500
>
>  >
>>
>>  I am sure that I am not the only person who has observed that the
>>  total cost of scholarly material has increased since the advent of
>>  open access publications.  And it will continue to grow.  Even if it's
>>  true that OA could cut costs by 15%, what does that mean if research
>>  increases by 50%?
>>
>>  Joe Esposito
>>
>>
>>  On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 5:06 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>  > From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
>>  > Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:02:23 +0000
>>  >
>>  > "We estimate that a full transition to OA could lead to savings in the
>>  > region of 10-12% of the cost base of a subscription publisher."
>>  >
>>  > BernsteinResearch investment analyst Claudio Aspesi
>>  >
>>  > The key question: If Aspesi's estimate of the potential cost savings
>>  > provided by a full transition to OA is accurate, would those savings
>>  > be passed on to the research community if they were achieved?
>>  >
>>  > https://plus.google.com/109680188903316748168/posts/ao2BBmwpzHg
>>  >
>>  > http://bit.ly/TquCZz
>>  >
>>  > Richard Poynder