practical solution

[Richard Feinman <RFeinman@downstate.edu>]

Did I mention author-side payment?.  If there is infinite money 
there are no payments from anybody but... If you insist on a 
practical solution let me explain what it will be like:

There will be a central publishing organization that will provide 
money for publishing scholarly articles.  The publishing process 
will be streamlined and well understood and because it will be 
basically running a website, will not be hugely expensive. 
Journals can apply to the CPO (the way individuals and 
organizations apply for research grants) and they can receive 
money on a cost plus basis (with a cap).

The money for the CPO will come from government agencies who will 
use the per centage of their funds that they had previously used 
for publishing.  The money will come also from libraries 
who,while in effect buying publications for the world, will see 
it as their basic mission.  The money will come from corporations 
who had previously subscribed to technical journals.  The money 
will come from private foundations and individuals who are 
overwhelmed with the prospect of being part of the publishing 
revolution that brings open access to the world.  The money will 
come from Societies who will be expected to contribute something 
for publication of their journals. Publishers will have to be 
happy with a normal (but more reliable) income. Editors will have 
to get lower salaries but mostly everybody will be happier.

Now before you rush off to think of a million things that are 
wrong with this proposal try to focus on one or two aspects that 
might be developed in a positive way because, taking previous 
comments for a yes, this is what we all want.  Especially see if 
here isn't some aspect of this that could be implemented in an 
approximate way right away.  Whaddaya say? RF

Richard D. Feinman, Professor of Biochemistry

<Toby.GREEN@oecd.org>
Sent by: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
06/27/06 09:25 PM
Please respond to
liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject RE: Take it all for a yes, and on to Q.2a.

Richard,

While doing some coppicing last weekend, I thought about your 
question 1 and realised there was another answer - if there is an 
unlimited amount of money available, why not give it to readers 
so they can buy what they need without any limits? This would 
give the same result as unlimited author-side payments but not 
disrupt the current publishing system.

Now, Q2a - I think the question would be more interesting if you 
looked outside the relatively well-funded area of biomedical 
research where it is well known that publishing costs are only a 
small proportion of total funding (the same being true in physics 
and other 'big' sciences). Why not try economics or education or 
any of the social sciences or humanities where research funding 
is limited?

Toby

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Feinman
Sent: 27 June, 2006 2:38 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Take it all for a yes, and on to Q.2a.

I didn't mean it to be a mental exercise.  The point was to 
determine if we all agree that OA is desirable.  In the past, on 
this list and elsewhere, people have made the argument that it is 
not needed -- we have all the information we need, or the general 
public would be hurt by too much information;we need to edit for 
them., etc. It has struck me and others, that these didn't make 
sense, or were compromised by conflicts of interest.  I asked 
originally whether any of these arguments made sense except for 
people who stood to gain from maintaining the current system and 
what argument against OA's desirability.  The idea is that you 
can't ask about feasibility, unless you know whether you want to 
do it.

It thought it was pretty simple idea.  Should we build an atomic 
bomb, should we have the bathroom redone, etc.?  Once you know 
whether you want to do it, you can ask how much it costs or how 
hard it is to do or whether it is even possible, but first you 
have to know if you want to do it.  A what if question, if you 
like,or as Nietzsche put it: we can do with any how if we have a 
why. The fact that hardly anybody wanted to play and insisted 
that I cannot even pose the question, and that it is in the 
ballpark with world peace and end to world hunger, suggests we 
all agree it is desirable to have OA.  So, I will take if for a 
yes.  Now we can go on to Q.2

Q. 2. Richard Roberts, among others, has suggested that the money 
currently spent on publishing only needs to be re-directed 
towards OA. Now, since everybody seems to agree that author-pays 
means largely author's grant-pays and since NIH is most 
accessible and major funder in biomedicinee: 2a. Is it possible 
to find out how what per centage of the NIH research grants go 
for author page charges, subscriptions, if anybody still buys 
reprints and other costs that are directed to publishing?

Richard D. Feinman, Professor of Biochemistry