Price of OA
Friday, March 26, 2004
Nature web focus: Access to the literature: the debate continues
An overview of the pricing issues involved in electronic publications. Odlyzko asks some questions that he doesn’t answer so I thought I would 
And is it fair to shift costs of publishing from libraries to the authors themselves? Are the authors the main beneficiaries of publications, or their readers? Should part of the public grants used to pay for research be used to cover the costs of publishing the findings of that research?
As to shifting cost, my library is an institutional member of BioMed Central. Any of our people who wish to publish there don’t have to pay a fee. And if we have to drop our membership or Biomed Central closes, we can create an archive on our own servers of those papers without violating copyright.
Are the authors the main beneficiaries of publications, or their readers?
I’d say the main beneficiary is the general public that gets better care. As to the others, authors get published (Publish or perish is so very true, even for straight researchers.), and the readers get access to new information wherever they are without the drain on their resources. Imagine if you had to pay for every website you visited, it would cut down on your surfing habit quickly and limit you pretty thouroughly to places that had already been paid.
Should part of the public grants used to pay for research be used to cover the costs of publishing the findings of that research?
Absolutely. The research is useless if it isn’t published because no one will be able to find it.
Open Access — laura
