Re: Information Access Alliance Urges DOJ & FTC to Explore Remedies

[JOHANNES VELTEROP <velteropvonleyden@btinternet.com>]

Anthony,

You're asking too much here, if you want open access to cure all 
the world's ills before you'd accept it. And the trade-off is not 
between some authors not being able to publish and lots of 
readers not being able to have access. The trade-off is between 
some authors perhaps not being able to pay for formal publication 
and lots of readers not being able to have access. Authors can 
virtually always publish their stuff, albeit informally. Besides, 
perhaps author-side payment is eventually not the best way anyway 
to achieve large scale open access.

What about a system whereby institutions pay a 'contribution' to 
keep the journals that they value 'in the air' as it were? Such 
contributions could be tailored to the profile (in terms of size 
and subjects covered, for teaching and/or research, etc.) and 
readers' and authors' needs with regard to the journals in 
question. A transition to a system that would support open access 
is bound to be difficult, to be sure. But if the energy now used 
for the futile exercise of fighting the future could be 
redirected to efforts to find solutions, then we would be making 
progress already, even if it doesn't immediately result in open 
access in all disciplines for all the journal literature.

The bottom line is that the money now being spent on the 
scientific literature can be spent so much better, so much more 
optimally with regard to what the function of the journal 
literature for the scientific enterprise is in the first place, 
when that money somehow 'buys' open access rather than 
subscriptions.

Jan Velterop

----- Original Message ----
From: Anthony Watkinson anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Sent: Tuesday, 13 February, 2007 11:54:19 PM
Subject: Re: Information Access Alliance Urges DOJ & FTC to Explore Remedies
for Journal Bundling: Comments Available on Web

There are a lot of assertions here. Until an Open Access advocate 
(believer) can explain to me how a system of author (or proxy) 
payment can be made efficient or fair and not prevent some 
authors from publishing, I remain to be convinced.  And, as we 
see from their behaviour (never mind surveys) this is the view of 
most of the academic community

Anthony