Blackwell Publishing Copyright 2003

Open Access, A Publisher’s perspective

Jon Walmsley

Blackwell Publishing

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Rehearsing the issues (1):The cost of publishing

• OA - “It’s not fair: access to research should be free.”

• PUB - “We do things that make the process work. These activities have a cost.”

• OA - “Maybe, but publishers charge too much.”

• QUESTION 1: How much does it cost?

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Rehearsing the issues (2):Author pays

• OA - “Authors can pay as a (small) part of the total cost of research.”

• AUTHORS - “Can we? Many of us can’t.”

• OA - “Don’t worry: your funders will, or if you’re too poor, you’ll get let off.”

• QUESTION 2: Can enough authors pay enough to support OA?

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Rehearsing the issues (3):Self-archiving

• OA - “If author can’t afford to pay, they can publish as normal and self-archive.”

• PUB - “If enough people did this, journals could die from “Google-isation.”

• OA - “So what? Institutions can publish.”

• INSTITUTIONS - “Can we afford etc?”

• RESEARCHERS - “How will I filter?”

• QUESTION 3: Could a distributed network of repositories substitute existing system?

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Rehearsing the issues (4):The finances of funders.

• OA - “Natural selection will solve details.”

• PUB - “Are you sure? Might not quality and search-ability suffer in some scenarios?”(If well-run journals disappear as filters.)

• OA - “Governments, Funding bodies and Institutions will look after infrastructure.”

• QUESTION 4: Would funding bodies see net-savings from wholesale switch to OA?

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Summary

• Costs are higher than first thought (Q1)- guidelines for new OA Jnls: $3750 pp

• Driven higher by non-paying authors (Q2)- and papers rejected for Quality Control

• Institutional Repositories may struggle to act as reliable mini-publishers (Q3)

- eg funding reliable archives & admin

• Funders may not see net-savings (Q4)- eg ”UK PLC” could be a net-loser

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Other Aspects (for the record)

• OA is not intrinsically faster.

• Current charges per paper unsustainable.

• Learned Societies could be crippled by OA

• Access has increased dramatically online for those for whom research is written.

• Competition has increased with usage stats.

• Public sector would subsidise private sector.

• Journals confer status & independence

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Conclusions

• OA is an interesting part of publishing, and publishers are keen to experiment.

- viable models seem to require subsidies- successful models must deliver quality

• Financial factors are, of course, crucial.- publishers make and risk profit/loss - temp. subsidies can distort the picture

• More research and experimentation needs to be done to find out what is viable.