--On the philosophical issues, shouldn't society publishers worry about governmental ideological manipulation of who within their memberships gets grant-funded APCs?  Sure, one could make that argument about federal grant funding per se. But doesn't the latter arguably addresses an externality that (in an ideal world) concerns the common good, while APC funding is an externality that does *not* necessitate federal subsidizing--given that scholarly publishing mechanisms can and should be developed that don't require federal subsidy?  These are points everyone should ask regardless of political affiliation.

--From what one speaker at Charleston said, the complexities of negotiating with publishers has a new overlay: tortuous internecine discussions among consortial members. If  this is true of all consortia, one has the sense that consortial leaders now have to have to engage game theoretic scenarios not only with respect to publishers, but also their individual members. Just imagine how much more complicated all this will now become with the pressures on libraries to pay for APCs. Isn't it undesirable to introduce this added complexity, at least at this juncture? Why not just work on contracting the number of journals published, about which . . . 

--I've been arguing for contracting the number of journals, a la something like Bradford's Law. A refinement on that: we need to distinguish two rationales for contracting the journal space. These are:

Rationale (1.) An argument on the principled basis that it is desirable to contract the number of journals, given that the ever-growing glut of journal articles undermines the common good of discoverability and assimilation of research findings.

Rationale (2.) An argument from economic reality: library budgets are relatively flat so we need to deconstruct Big Deals or even the number of subscribed journals regardless the journal sales model.

Shouldn't big consortia use their negotiating power to argue that the ever-rising prices of journals (not to mention pressures for APCs merely to replicate the price dynamics of toll-access publishing) necessitates contracting the number of journals?  This point extends not just to toll-access publishing, but also gold ones? If so, pursuing rationale (1) for contracting the journal space aligns neatly with rationale (2) for doing so. I.e., rationale (2) becomes the vehicle for accomplishing rationale (1).

--I've also argued that consortia with journal negotiating power should educate their faculty about the need to contract the journal space. A refinement to that, too: the discussions should focus on rationale (1) above, rather than (2), which concerns business matters that are not understanbly the concern of faculty or researchers. Perhaps this will incentivize faculty activism to create shifts in tenure and promotion  assessment. That will take much, much longer than the roughly 20 year period in which OA took root. In the shorter run, perhaps working to reduce funding for so many journals will exert downward pressure on the t and p assessment process, thereby changing it incrementally in the direction toward contracting the journal space, which is absolutely critical to changing the demand side that drives prices. I'm sure many people who look at the publishing system have concluded that t and p--and also grant application assessment criteria (e.g., a record of publishing in high-tier journals or just in a *whole lot* of journals)--is *the* driver of demand for so much peer-reviewed publishing (including stuff with 0 citing articles) and therefore high prices. But efforts to change t and p should move slowly and after considering an array of counterarguments to avoid unintended consequences.

--A constant refrain among librarians is that budgets have been relatively flat for a very long time. How many more resources will we not be able to buy if these "transformative" schemes takes hold? Transformative, toward what end goal and with what consequences? Is the assumption that there will be a gradual transition from library funding of APCs, to 100 percent state funding via grants? What again of ideological concerns, this time having to do with the impermeability that universities properly have from the state to retain their properly critical role in society? A non-partisan political statement; everyone in academia should agree on this, in my opinion.

--What of APC charges imposed on individuals in developing countries? Is the idea that they will get discounted pricing? But then doesn't that impose a variety of neo-colonialism, namely developed countries deciding what research merits an APC discount? Of course, there have been discounts to developing countries for toll-access journal subscriptions, but what happens when developed country publishers now can waive APCs for individual researchers--thereby (potentially) making managing editors the brokers of what specific research agendas get the APC discount? The counterargument is that there are ways to isolate the APC discounting from peer review. But are managing editors really immune to bias, however subtle?

Thanks for the various discussions at Charleston about some of these points. It has inspired me to continue working on my ongoing project about preprint publishing and its symbiosis with journal publishing. It has become clear that it's hard to address just one piece of the scholarly publishing system without all sorts of ripple effects for one's views on other parts of the system.  

[Views are solely my own, as usual]
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