I applaud Joe's call for more evidence from the NFP
publishers.
It would be good, for example, to know what percentage of
their
surpluses they plough back into bursaries etc. I am prepared
to
believe that this "science dividend" is
important, but if we are
to take account of it in the move towards OA we do need to
know
how big a factor it is. From JISC's experience with NFPs in
Mary
Waltham's study for us on learned society business models,
I know
that societies are reluctant to open up their accounts, but
surely they could trust an independent third party with the
information.
To answer the point about the effect of "big
deals", they harm
NFPs in transferring library money away from individual
subscriptions (often NFPs) into block subscriptions from the
major (usually commercial) publishers. Yes, libraries pushed
for
these "big deals" but are now beginning to
realise the
disadvantage in locking up a large proportion of their
budgets.
Fred Friend
JISC Scholarly Communication Consultant
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
E-mail ucylfjf ucl.ac.uk
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