From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:18:57 +0100 This time I did read through your advocacy piece Richard and did not find anything particularly special in David Price's remarks. I could not help comparing them with the excellent and balanced speech to the PA made by David Willetts. It goes against the grain to find anything good in the present UK government but I do in this case. My impression is those pressing for OA, at least among the library sector and even within UCL, have moved on. A roadmap has been produced by the information officers of the League of European Research Universities (LERU). This organisation is chaired by none other than Paul Ayris of UCL, an Open Access advocate. I think it is an excellent document (on the whole) and suggests the ways in which major research intensive universities might move OA forward in a sustainable way. It has not been much promoted or commented on and I would now like to bring it to general attention: see: http://www.leru.org/files/publications/LERU_AP8_Open_Access.pdf . It does consider the special problem within the humanities. Anthony -----Original Message----- From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:19:29 +0100 An interview with the Vice-Provost (Research) at University College London, Professor David Price. Some quotes: "Economic modelling shows that, for research universities, the Green route to OA is more cost effective than the Gold. Under Gold Research Councils and Universities will have to find millions of pounds in existing budgets to fund OA charges. That means that some things will have to stop to make the necessary monies available." "The Finch recommendations are not good news for the Humanities, whose unit of publication is characteristically the research monograph. Who will publish Gold OA monographs, and who will pay for them?" "The result of the Finch recommendations would be to cripple university systems with extra expense. Finch is certainly a cure to the problem of access, but is it not a cure which is actually worse than the disease?" "What Finch should have done is to model Green and Gold together, to see which works out cheaper. A forthcoming report from the JISC's Open Access Implementation Group on the impact of APC charges on universities does this - and comes up with a different scenario to Finch." David Price's message to UK Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts: "Listen to UCL's response to Finch and carry on talking to get the best transitional model from where we are now to a fully OA world. The Finch recommendations are only part of the answer." More here: http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/finch-report-ucls-david-price-responds.html