Re: Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Critique of PRC Study

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

The library budgets are funded by multiple sources.  Send a kid 
to college and see.

It seems very hard to make the point that OA is not in the 
interest of research universities, but that is the critical 
point.  Phil Davis notes that 200 institutions produce 85% of all 
research.  Allowing for the reasonable objection that we need to 
know how that 85% figure was derived, it nonetheless seems to me 
that the intriguing question is what percentage the top 25 
institutions produce.  It's going to be a big number.

Why would the top 25 give this away?  They are all (with the 
exception of the 2-3 with endowments that would awe Croesus) 
struggling to finance their operations, and they are to give away 
these riches?  Why is it that McGraw-Hill and Thomson can make 
money with publications based on research, but the University of 
Illinois, Tufts, and the University of Michigan cannot (taking as 
my examples three outstanding institutions that nonetheless lack 
the cachet of a handful of others)?  The top research 
institutions should take control of their intellectual property 
and commercialize it, not for the good of the world but to 
benefit themselves.

Consider the alternatives:  A university president could take a 
huge gift from a pharmaceutical company, a grant that comes with 
strings attached.  Or a donor could fund a new program, slowly 
nudging university research into areas that appeal to the fancies 
of the rich.  Shall we spend a moment on grants from the 
Department of Defense?

Proprietary publishing, aka toll-access publishing, when placed 
in the hands of the universities themselves (where, it must be 
said, it absolutely does NOT currently reside), would provide a 
mechanism for funding research by distributing the costs to the 
users, the beneficiaries of that information. It would enable 
institutions to pursue their own research agendas.  And that is 
for the good of the world.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Velterop, Jan, Springer UK" <Jan.Velterop@springer.com>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>; <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 3:27 PM
Subject: RE: Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Critique of PRC Study

> I'm still puzzled. The library budget money come from where? 
> Possibly from the same sources as grant money? Possibly from 
> 'overheads' taken off grants by the institutions?
>
> Isn't it time for some joined-up approach?
>
> Jan Velterop