Re: universities experiment with paying OA fees

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

David:

I don't know where the world is headed, but I can vouch for the 
fact that I personally have made the kind of business 
presentation that you summarize here.  There is investor money 
going into this area, with no less a goal than disrupting the 
academic publishing market.  And the reason the money is coming 
in is because investors perceive that this is a growth market, 
that more money will be spent on scholarly communications in the 
future.  They could be wrong, of course, but I haven't met any 
serious business person who believes that the cost of publishing 
services (whether OA, toll-access, or something else) will be 
lower in the aggregate than they are now.

As for the Wal-Mart example, let's not lionize the big guys and 
let's not romanticize the little guys.  Some things lend 
themselves to scale (enter Wal-Mart), some do not (god bless Paul 
Ginsparg).  The art of the matter is being able to distinguish 
between what goes into one column, what goes into the other.

For the example that started this thread, it's Wal-Mart all the 
way.

And now, having stated my point of view, I am going to shop at my 
local independent bookstore.  I know it's hopeless, but I like 
the little guys.  But I don't extrapolate from my personal tastes 
to an economic worldview.

Joe Esposito

   ----- Original Message -----
   From: David Prosser
   To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
   Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 4:51 PM
   Subject: RE: universities experiment with paying OA fees


   I know that I'm not going to convince Sandy and Jim, but I think
   they over-estimate the Wal-Marts and underestimate the smaller
   publishers.

   But just think about the business model that the CEO of a large
   publisher is going to have to propose to create the market that
   Sandy and Jim imagine.

   <snip>

   David Prosser
   SPARC Europe