Quality clauses, or diminishing quality of non-OA

[OA Librarian Heather <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

Perhaps it is a little early in the transition for this question, 
but I'm wondering whether anyone besides me is beginning to get a 
little worried about the inevitable diminshing quality of the 
determinedly non-OA journals?

Once researchers fully understand just how much funding agencies 
appreciate the broadest possible dissemination of results, which 
comes with OA, it seems obvious that the vast majority will 
prefer to publish in fully OA or full-self-archiving rights 
journals.  After all - all else being equal, those who are 
seeking research funding, are more than happy to make a small 
adjustment to accomodate those who allocate the funding, right?

When these researchers consider the full OA of PLoS, 
BioMedCentral, Hindawi, etc., or the flexibility of publishers 
like PNAS, Oxford, and Blackwell's, and compare these with 
non-OA-friendly journal policies, will the savvy researcher not 
seek to publish in the manner that will please the funder?

If the researchers who tend to seek and receive the significant 
funding are publishing in these venues - what will happen to the 
quality of the determinedly anti-OA journal?  My expectation is 
that quality will decrease.

For journals of low quality, this could also mean a loss in 
quantity, which many libraries will have already covered in 
licensing agreements.  For journals which currently have high 
rejection rates, however, this could mean a loss in quality, 
which could be made up through lowering quality (i.e. accepting 
papers which would previously have been rejected).  A library 
with a long-term agreement could be stuck paying premium prices 
for journals with decreasing quality.

If anyone has given some thought to this and/or has contract 
language to address this issue, I would appreciate hearing from 
you.  Responses on or off list are welcome.  If warranted, I 
would be happy to prepare a summary for the list, for posting to 
the list or on own of my blogs, depending on length.

Speaking of my blogs, I am working on series of articles about OA 
Librarian warriors.  Naturally, I will be including a few 
Liblicensers: David Goodman would have been first on the list, of 
course, if he weren't already so very well known.  Then there is 
our very own moderator, who has been providing us with this 
excellent open forum for so many years, not to mention sharing 
her own work freely on her web site long before the rest of us 
had ever heard of self-archiving.  If you know of any librarians 
who deserve to be recognised, or have some time to help with 
these series, please let me know!

Heather G. Morrison
Heather's E-LIS:
http://eprints.rclis.org/view/people/Morrison,_Heather.html
http://oalibrarian.blogspot.com