From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 20:55:07 -0400 Jan, About the "anglo-linguism," do you see this as a matter of choice or a function of network effects and the law of increasing returns? Joe Esposito On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 3:30 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > From: Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2012 09:43:24 +0200 > > On 6 Aug 2012, at 03:34, LIBLICENSE wrote: > >> From: "Andrew A. Adams" <[log in to unmask]> >> Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2012 10:08:54 +0900 >> >> There >> are on the order of 10,000 research instutitions and more than ten times as >> many journals. Persudaing 10,000 institutions to adopt OA deposit mandates >> seems to me a quicker and more certain route to obtain OA than persuading >> 100,000 journals to go Gold (and finding more money to bribe them into it, it >> would appear - money which is going to continue to be demanded by them in >> perpetuity, not accepted as a transitional fee - there's nothing so permanent >> as a temporary measure). > > 10,000 research institutes means, in terms of 'green', 10,000 > repositories; 100,000 journals (if there were so many; I've only ever > heard numbers in the order of 20-25,000) does not mean 100,000 > publishers. Besides, there is no existential reason for institutions > to have a repository and 'green' mandate. The fact that others have > repositories and it doesn't have one itself does not harm a research > institution in the same way that not having being 'gold' (or at least > having a 'gold' option) does existentially harm journals in an > environment of more and more 'gold' journals. > > As for costs, there are two things that seem to escape the attention > of exclusively 'green' advocates: > > 1) 'Green' fully depends on the prolongation of the subscription > model. Without subscription revenues no journals, hence no > peer-reviewed articles, hence nothing to self-archive but manuscripts, > arXiv-style. (That would be fine by me, actually, with > post-publication peer review mechanisms overlaying arXiv-oids). The > cost of maintaining subscriptions is completely ignored by exclusively > 'green' advocates, who always talk about 'green' costing next to > nothing. They are talking about the *marginal* cost of 'green', and > compare it to the *integral* cost of 'gold'. > > 2) Exclusively 'green' advocates do not seem to understand that for > 'gold' journals, publishers are not in any position to "demand money". > They can only offer their services in exchange for a fee if those who > would pay the fee are willing to pay it. That's known as > 'competition', or as a 'functioning market'. By its very nature, it > drives down prices. This in contrast to the monopoloid subscription > market, where the price drivers face upwards. Sure, some APC's > increased since the early beginnings of 'gold' OA publishing, when > 'gold' publishers found out they couldn't do it for amounts below > their costs. But generally, the average APCs per 'gold' article are > lower — much lower — than the average publisher revenues per > subscription article. And this average per-article subscription price > will have to be coughed up in order to keep 'green' afloat. > > If and when the denizens of the ivory tower were to reduce their > culturalism and anglo-linguism that currently prevails, we could > rapidly see science publishing emerge in places like China, India, and > other countries keen on establishing their place in a global market, > competing on price. APCs could tumble. Some call this 'predatory gold > OA publishing'. Few realise that the 'prey' is subscription journals. [SNIP]