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Re: Funding OA (Long-Term)

I agree with the implication of Joe's question. Massive efficiencies in the production and distribution of research literature will lead to more *driving* not less (and for sure there will be many more international *calls* as the cost of them drops to zero). More research publications will be produced and the extent to which they are used will be increased. Much more production and much more automated and frequent access (searching and snippeting not necessarily end-to-end reading), and I doubt that the overall investment in libraries (or their equivalent) will be reduced.

This is an over-simplification, but a valid generalisation:

the scientific and scholarly research market is by and large driven
by Producers.

As the scope and activity in research grows the publication volume grows. This is where the pressure is coming from -- it is all those new disciplines, all those Chinese and Indian universities and PhDs, whose research is going to strain and expand the system in the next three decades. The need for Open Access is coming from the requirements of an efficient and fast market for scientific progress and the global dissemination of ideas and scholarship. So any efficiencies in the production chain are likely to be absorbed in the production of more published research.

There are parts of the STM market which are much more Consumer-driven than Producer-driven. One can suppose that there will be (are already) efficient models for OA publication of high quality reference and teaching materials in these high-end fields, but there will be still plenty of opportunity for Priced products and services; a Consumer demand for added value publications and services for which there will be winner-takes-all type rewards. That is where commercially-minded publishers and authors are going to invest their efforts. This is where any 'slack' in the Yale or Bangalore library budgets will go. I make this point because I speak as an erstwhile publisher who thinks that OA for primary research is going to be good for publishers. Moreover, to take Joe Esposito's analogy, I am not arguing for cars being driven off the road, just for getting rid of the gas guzzlers and the pointless journeys and for doing as much of it as possible with the lowest possible impact.

Adam

On 2/9/07, Joseph J. Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com> wrote:
Adam, what if the costs for publication were to be reduced in
half, but the output of research were to increase four-fold?  Or
suppose the costs dropped by 90% and the output increased
10,000%?  Let's imagine that you could reduce the price of a
gallon of gasoline to 30 cents, as it was when I got my first
driver's license: Would you drive less or more?  Or to take your
example:  as the cost of "international telcos" drops, will you
make more calls or fewer?

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "adam hodgkin" <adam.hodgkin@gmail.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: Funding OA (Long-Term)
Thomas Krichel can answer on his own account, but his point seemed perfectly clear to me. Efficient journals in the 21st century should have much lower overheads than efficient journals in the mid 20th century.

Look at another economic activity -- international phone calls: I dont know where the non-trivial costs of the international telcos are going to come from in the next 20 years because I dont care. The need for many of those costs will disappear because network communications costs are dropping 30% pa (or something of that order). An efficiently organised web journal doesn't need a secretary, a travel allowance for the editor, postal costs, an office, off-prints, and modest or generous honoraria for its editorial board. Those costs are 'nice to have' but they will probably go away/have gone already. Sure some costs remain but $1,500 as an article processing charge is probably too much to pay in the fields of library science, philosophy, or French literature, so look for a way of taking costs out of the system.

Aggregation and automation will decimate many of these cost centres on the production ramp, but it would also be worth thinking about the costs on the librarians side of the distribution slope. Are these costs also liable to diminish as an efficient system of web-based library services develops (Google Book Search etc)? It is at least possible. There is going to be less need for book stacks and less need for book stackers. There will be a move to aggregated services and centralised resourcing.

I share your (Ann's) doubt that it is appropriate for libraries to provide editorial and production subsidies to open access journals in the long-term. Your budget will not stretch to it.

Adam Hodgkin