From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2017 20:38:25 -0400 It's easy to characterize scam journal APCs as nuisances from a library point of view. But to the faculty member who has no institutional resources to help pay those charges and very limited resources of their own, and who perhaps is also unaware that the journal in question is of very low quality, predatory APCs might constitute a lot more than a nuisance. On the other hand, there would at best be extremely limited incentives to the "super-profits" to create journals as poor as those created by the crooks perpetrating OA scams. If you're selling a suite of journals and the world--meaning faculty/researchers and librarians--figures it out, then it becomes that much easier to do away with the entire package. There is at least some semblance of a self-correcting mechanism in place. No such thing exists for the OA scammers, who, if a journal is discredited, can just start a new one with a legitimate-sounding name. You're quite right that the impact on the library budget is minimal, almost nothing, but especially for scholars in cash-poor countries or institutions I suspect the impact can be much larger than a nuisance. Alex Holzman On Sun, Aug 6, 2017 at 7:31 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > From: "Jan Erik Frantsvåg" <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2017 06:27:18 +0000 > > Thanks for reading my post, Rick - and responding to it! > > Of course, there are still single journal purchases around, but the > large money is spent on packages. And packaging can motivate sellers > to create low-level (to say the least) journals to stuff the package > with. I was responding to a point on traditional publishers, as > opposed to OA publishers, not having any motivation to create > low-quality jornals – in my opinion this motive exists, especially for > package sellers. > > The financial burden: A matter of scale here. Of course, APCs to scam > journals present a burden, but I have never seen any calculations > showing this burden to be near the level of burden the super-profits > of major publishers are. Super-profits are burdens, APCs to scam > publishers are more on the level of financial nuisances. So for "the > burden", stress the "the" to make it "the important burden". If you > have any fresh numbers on the total of APCs paid to scam publishers, > I'd be happy to get a link. It merits close following. > > Best, > Jan Erik > > Jan Erik Frantsvåg > Open Access Adviser > The University Library > UiT The Arctic University of Norway > phone +47 77 64 49 50 > e-mail [log in to unmask]