Re: PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access: excerpts from article in Nature Magazine

["Charles W. Bailey, Jr." <cwbailey@digital-scholarship.com>]

Sally:

People and infrastructure costs are indeed important.

My assumption is that the SFU Library (and/or its parent 
institution) is subsidizing most of these costs (people, in this 
case, meaning technical support staff) and charging modest fees 
to recoup some incremental costs that are not covered by 
in-place, baseline human/technical/facility infrastructure. 
(Heather can clarify if this is not so.)

The external "publishers" paying these modest fees then only have 
to worry about the costs of editorial and journal production 
support (the latter may be as simple as creating PDFs from Word 
files and putting them and metadata into OJS). Editorial support 
may be done entirely by volunteers, whose salaries are being paid 
as part of their real jobs by various universities and other 
organizations worldwide.

http://software.lib.sfu.ca/docs/software.prices.pdf

So, from the external "publishers" point of view, the only real 
costs are as outlined above, and, from the SFU Library point of 
view, the costs are not viewed as if there was no infrastructure 
already in place: to a large degree, it was there already for 
other purposes, and it is the incremental cost on top of this 
base that is required perform the new journal-hosting function 
that is viewed as their "real" cost.

Best Regards, Charles

Charles W. Bailey, Jr.

Digital Scholarship
http://www.digital-scholarship.org/
E-Mail: cwbailey@digital-scholarship.com


Sally Morris (Morris Associates) wrote:

> I think all of those involved in publishing recognize that the 
> major element of cost is people;  infrastructure is also an 
> important element - e.g. buildings, heat and light, computers 
> and their systems (quite complex if they are hosting 
> e-journals). If these costs were ignored, I'd be prepared to 
> guess that many publishers, both commercial and otherwise, 
> could come up with a similar figure. We have to be careful not 
> to compare apples with oranges!
>
> Sally Morris
> Consultant, Morris Associates (Publishing Consultancy)
> South House, The Street
> Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
> Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk
>
> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison
> Sent: 01 February 2007 00:24
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access: excerpts from article in
> Nature Magazine
>
> Peter Banks wrote:
>
> "as Heather Morrison claims, that a journal can be run on about
> $500..."
>
> This is the approximate annual cost for journal hosting and
> software support services by SFU Library, for a publisher with
> more than 10 journals.  The price list can be downloaded from:
> http://software.lib.sfu.ca/support.html
>
> Look under OJS.  The cost for more than 10 journals is $600 per
> journal (Canadian), which is about $500 U.S.
>
> Please note that OJS (Open Journal Systems) itself is open
> source, and absolutely free for anyone, anywhere to download. The
> price for hosting and support is available for those who choose
> this option.
>
> There is more to running a journal than hosting and software
> support, of course.
>
> Nevertheless, I hope that sharing this information helps to
> illustrate that it is possible to publish scholarly journals
> without expending an enormous sum of money.
>
> Disclosure:  I work for SFU Library (for a different
> organization, which derives no benefit from the success of OJS).
>
> Heather G. Morrison
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com