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