Re: Major society publisher announces support for public access to scientific literature

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

Peter Banks wrote:

> Although I think many journals can probably make content 
> available earlier than they do without much risk to their 
> business models, you can't take the experience of the ASCB 
> journal and make that the case for FRPAA.
Peter Banks also wrote, to the American Scientist Open Access 
Forum, on January 30th:

> I don't disagree with anything you say. At the American Diabetes 
> Diabetes, we made Diabetes Care available freely available three 
> months after publication, and the most clinically significant 
> papers available immediately (as well as allowing authors to 
> make postprints immediately available upon acceptance). That 
> system preserved our subscription and advertising revenue, 
> allowing us to invest in the kinds of education that patients 
> and professionals most desired.
>
> I think this was a reasonable system for supporting both wide 
> access to the primary literature and the creation of sought 
> after interpretive literature. Going for universal free access 
> to published papers would have made the system collapse. Yes, I 
> cared about profits--because any net income supported research, 
> education, and information tailored for doctors and patients.
Original message can be found here:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/6046.html

[snip]

Conclusion:  Diabetes Care moved to a combination of immediate 
and 3- months-delayed open access for the journal per se, plus 
allowing for self-archiving of postprints immediately on 
acceptance for publication (i.e., before publication). 
Subscription and advertising revenue were preserved.  Not only 
did Diabetes Care continue to receive enough revenue to cover the 
costs of publication - it continued to receive enough profit to 
fund other association activities, too.

Heather G. Morrison
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com