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