From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2015 07:03:24 +0000 The trouble with these musings (apart from the usual ‘I’m a perfectly reasonable person; you’re a raving partisan’ attacks) is that they are rather empty. They don’t actually give a vision of what the world of scholarly communications would look like if we entered the nirvana of blissful cooperation. Rather disappointing. David On 20 Jul 2015, at 00:51, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: From: T Scott Plutchak <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 22:20:13 +0000 I think Karin is very much on the right track. My own musings on the subject are here: http://tscott.typepad.com/tsp/2015/07/what-we-share.html Scott T Scott Plutchak | Director of Digital Data Curation Strategies UAB | The University of Alabama at Birmingham The Edge of Chaos LHL 427 http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4712-5233 >From: Karin Wikoff <[log in to unmask]> >Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 14:09:23 +0000 > >I think the relationship is symbiotic. It doesn't have to be as >antagonistic as it sometimes is. The common shared goal is a desire >to sustain academic publishing. Each party gets something different >out of academic publishing, but if it becomes so unsustainable that it >crashes and burns, every party loses out. So, we have a shared >interest in making things work. The trick is that we each do have to >protect our interests, which can lead to taking actions which >exacerbate the conflict and do not help the larger goal of keeping it >sustainable. (Or perhaps making it sustainable, because I am not at >all sure that it really is right now). Sticking to an insistence on >continuing to maintain a much-larger-than-any-other-publishers profit >margin in the face of disruptive change, for example, -- that's not >sustainable. (Kevin Smith had a blog about this a couple years ago, >with a link to a financial analysis on the impact of open access on >Elsevier if they continue on the same path). On the other hand, >libraries can't just expect publishers to change everything around to >meet our needs to the total detriment of their profit margin either - >and yet, we are squeezed in ways beyond our control. We are not a >bottomless well. > >I would love to see publishers, vendors, authors, and librarians sit >down and talk straight about what can be done to reach that shared >goal because right now, it feels like we are on the edge of a freefall >where academic publishing is increasingly not sustainable, and all the >parties are just more entrenched than ever. It's very, very hard to >get people to set that stuff aside and work together towards making it >all work. I don't know if it can be done, but we are not getting >there the way we've been operating up to now -- in a competitive, >antagonist way. (I also think such a step would be harder for >publishers and vendors than for librarians, but that could just be my >prejudice). > >It still costs -- money, time, effort -- to create and distribute >quality academic content. Open access, regardless the model, just >shifts those costs. The question still hangs there -- how can we make >it pay for itself in a sustainable way so libraries can continue to >purchase, so publishers can continue to be profitable enough to exist, >so authors can be compensated for the intellectual work, and so that >patrons can have access to the important academic information they >need? > >My opinion, > >Karin >-- >Karin Wikoff >Electronic and Technical Services Librarian >Ithaca College Library >Ithaca, NY 14850 >Email: [log in to unmask]