A number of publishers are now offering "open
choice", optional
open access on payment of a fee in a subscription-based
journal
(Oxford, Blackwell, Springer, Elsevier, PNAS).
With funding agencies either requiring or strongly
encouraging
open access (several of the RCUK bodies, Wellcome Trust,
NIH,
potentially FRPAA, Australian universities, and many other
policies either in effect or in the works - perhaps
librarians
might want to begin thinking about the economic implications
should this approach be somewhat successful, creating a new
revenue stream for publishers.
Some of the publishers (Oxford, Springer) are promising to
reduce
subscription fees based on open choice revenue. (If there
are
more publishers with such plans, my apologies for any
omissions,
I would appreciate being corrected).
It seems to me to be prudent for libraries to begin looking
for
some kind of "open choice success" clauses in
their licenses,
especially for multi-year agreements. Perhaps some of the
publishers have already put such clauses in place?
The idea would be, rather than agreeing to the usual sort of
pricing over a 3-year period, for example, libraries and
publishers would have the opportunity to periodicially
evaluate
subscription fees, based on open choice revenue - perhaps,
once a
year.
Without such a clause, libraries - especially those with
long-term agreements - could end up paying much more than
they
really should, if a significant proportion of the articles
ends
up being paid for through open choice (not to mention if
whole
journals included in a subscription bundle move to open
access
using processing fees).
It seems to me that libraries which coordinate processing
fee
payments for open access, regardless of where the revenues
for
these comes from (funding agencies, departmental funds,
library
budgets, combinations), are in the very best position to
negotiate subscription reductions for open choice payments -
they
are the ones who will know exactly how much revenue is going
to
which publishers, from their institutions.
For that matter, it is the library which coordinates these
fees
which is in a very good position to say to a publisher -
look,
we've paid for this whole year via subscription, plus x for
optional processing fees. Let's just deduct that
processing fees
from next year's subscription costs.
Considering how many publishers have come out with
"open choice"
in the near past, and OA policy developments underway, it
might
be a good idea to look for a standard clause, whether the
publisher currently has an "open choice" option
or not. After
all, how many publishers had these three years ago?
Could this approach, along with more straightforward payment
of
OA processing fees, be the means for a gradual transition
from
subscription-based payment to open access processing fee
payments, be one of the keys to a smooth transition from
subscriptions to open access?
Please note, this is not intended as an endorsement of
either the
open choice or processing fee approaches, only two of a
number of
business models for open access. Let's not forget that
less than
half of OA journals charge processing fees.
thoughts?
Heather G. Morrison
http://poeticecon
omics.blogspot.com
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