Institutional Journal Costs in an Open Access Environment

It is not a new idea that the largest and wealthiest
universities 
should pay more than other places to support scientific 
publishing. They already do: there are many expensive
periodicals 
and indexes that no one but they will buy--some essential,
some 
not.

The rationale for spending some of this money on OA journal 
author subsidies instead, is that it would be a more
appropriate 
and effective use of the money.

Instead, these libraries could cancel some of the least
necessary 
and most overpriced periodicals, and buy many items of
greater 
usefullness instead. This also would be a more appropriate
and 
effective use of the money.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodmanliu.edu