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