RE: Dramatic Growth of Open Access

["David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>]

Joe, It is the 'hand to mouth' existence of many not-for-profit 
societies that puts them at most risk in the current 
subscription-based model.  With a growing proportion of library 
funds being tied-into big deals from a small number of large 
publishers, there is less left for the NFPs.  With limited 
flexibility in cancelling big deals some libraries struggling to 
meet their budgets may turn to those journals that they can 
cancel with financial impunity - those from the NFPs.

Certainly, the move of a growing number of NFPs to enter into 
publishing deals with commercial publishers has been nothing to 
do with the 'threat' of open access, but the inability of the 
NFPs to compete in the subscription environment.  Conspiracy 
theorists might find the commercial publishers' enthusiasm for a 
move to big deals a more fertile ground for their musings than 
open access.

For some imaginative NFPs open access actually gives them a 
potential strategy for survival against the big squeeze from the 
bid deal - especially as they can tap into new revenue sources 
(e.g. Wellcome Trust funding).

(I developed some of these ideas more fully in a paper a couple 
of years ago: 
http://dandini.ingentaselect.com/vl=1227975/cl=15/nw=1/rpsv/cw/alpsp/0953151 
3/v17n1/s4/p17)


David C Prosser PhD
Director
SPARC Europe
E-mail:  david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Joseph Esposito
Sent: 18 April 2006 00:58
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Dramatic Growth of Open Access

The number of open access journals is growing--true.  The number 
of proprietary journals (aka "toll-access journals") is also 
growing.  The number of OA articles in primarily proprietary 
journals is growing.  And the number of unauthorized articles 
from proprietary journals that are available on the public Web 
("leakage") is growing.  I suspect the growth rate for this last 
category (leakage) is the fastest-growing of all, but that is a 
speculation.  Growth, growth, growth, growth:  why is everybody 
saying this is a zero-sum game?

Meanwhile, I happened to read that the CEO of Reed Elsevier 
(which publishes much more than science journals, of course) was 
awarded a bonus of around $3 million dollars this year.  Sales 
are strong, profit is up.  OA hasn't much touched the big guys. 
It's the little guys who can get hurt, the not-for-profit society 
publishers, many of whom live hand to mouth, in part because of 
their less restrictive access policies, in part because of their 
less aggressive pricing.  Are there any conspiracty theorists on 
this list who wonder if OA is a plot by the commercial houses to 
put their NFP competition out of business?

Joe Esposito