Reply to David Prosser

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

David Prosser wrote:

"Could you provide a paper where the your claim that 'The call 
for Open Access is simply diminishing the NFPs.' is explored in 
more detail?"

This is a fair question.  I know of no such paper.

Perhaps this would be a good time for the participants in 
not-for-profit academic publishing to offer their thoughts on 
this matter.  In any number of offline discussions, I have been 
told of the problems that OA poses for the NFPs, but David is not 
out of bounds in asking to hear the evidence. Could the NFP 
publishers who are part of this mailgroup share some of their 
comments with David and others who are of his point of view?  If 
people keep silent, it is hard to see why the advocates of OA 
would temper their activism.

As some NFP staff members may have institutional constraints on 
public statements, I would be happy to forward their anonymous 
comments to this list, assuming I can get them by the stern gaze 
of our moderator.

There is one item in David's post, however, to which I am 
compelled to respond personally:

"It would also be useful to have an explanation for why in your 
view open access is a greater threat to NFPs than, say, the 
continued success of big deal offerings from large publishers."

I don't know where this question comes from.  I have never been a 
supporter of the so-called "big deals" from a library's point of 
view.  The "big deal" substitutes quantity for quality.  But if 
these bundled packages have been successful, it is because 
libraries [and/or their readers] have wanted them.

Joe Esposito