Re: Potential positive spiral in transition to open access

[sgt3@psu.edu]

The assumption underlying such scenarios is that savings from 
library subscriptions will be applied to supporting more open 
access publishing. That is just not the way universities work, as 
James O'Donnell and others have pointed out on this listserv, so 
any such schemes are doomed to failure unless they can find a way 
to make this shifting of funding work in the way they hope it 
will.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State Press

> The economics of transitioning to open access is a challenge 
> -but not one without tremendous benefits, not only for access, 
> but for the economics of scholarly communication, in my opinion.
>
> This is a topic I explore in a recent blogpost, A Potential 
> Positive Cycle:  More Access, More Funds.
>
> Abstract
>
> Hypothesis: a process of transitioning to open access can 
> unleash funds, creating a positive cycle of increasing access 
> and freed funds to create more open access; the very opposite of 
> the negative serials pricing spiral of recent decades, which 
> featured increasing prices and decreasing access.
>
> As support for this hypothesis, this post looks at the potential 
> for open access if libraries were to focus on high-priced 
> journals (US $1,000 or more for an institutional 
> subscription),and succeed in working with their faculty to 
> convert just 10% to a volunteer / in- kind support model.
>
> It is estimated with such a scenario, that individual libraries 
> could save up to $450,000 US from their budgets after spending 
> on open access journal support is factored in. The cumulative 
> savings for libraries are potentially huge; for example, if the 
> ARL libraries subscribed to just a quarter of these journals 
> each, the annual savings for ARL would be in the order of 
> $13.8million annually. This would only be a fraction of the 
> savings for libraries, as ARL is only a subset of libraries, 
> albeit large ones. The true collective savings for libraries 
> would have to factor in libraries around the globe, including 
> libraries in Europe and the somewhat smaller libraries in North 
> America. If these savings were invested in further open access 
> initatives,libraries would save even more, freeing up more funds 
> to create more access.
>
> For details and calculations, please see the full blogpost
> at:http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com/2007/06/potential-positive-cycle-more-access.html
>
> While the focus of this blogpost is freeing funds for more open 
> access, the same theoretical approach could be used to free 
> funds to restore funding for scholarly monographs, humanities 
> and social sciences, etc., that was lost in recent decades due 
> to the serials pricing crisis.
>
> Comments?
>
> Any opinion expressed in this post is that of the author alone, 
> and does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC Electronic 
> Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library.
>
> Heather Morrison, MLIS
> The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com