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