[OAI-eprints] Re: New channel of support for open-access publishing

[Thomas Krichel]

  Stevan Harnad writes
> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Thomas Krichel wrote:
> 
> >   $1500 per paper should be amply sufficient to fund the
> >   publishing operation. I suggest that libraries support other
> >   ventures with more moderate charges.
> 
> Thomas, did you mean $500 ? Otherwise your posting does not quite
> make sense. (PLoS is proposing $1500.)
 
  Yes, that is what I meant: $1500 should be amply sufficient.
  Institutions should not be handing more money to PLoS. 

> If you meant $500 I remind you that PLoS is aiming explicitly for the
> high (quality, impact, prestige) end of science publishing (the level
> of Nature and Science) on the assumption that if the high end can be
> won over to OA journals, the rest will follow suit.
 
  By the same token, do you sincerely want to suggest that the competitors of 
  PLoS who charge more reasonable fees are intending to attract
  low-quality papers? Surely not! They just not as greedy as PLoS.

  It costs as much to publish quality intellectual contents as it cost
  to publish rubbish intellectual contents. Sure, if you have complicate
  multi-media contents, then your costs are likely to be higher. But most
  of the documents we are talking here about are, presumably, the
  traditional stuff of text, mathematical formulas and pictures that
  academic authors are trained to produce. To produce good multi-media
  is a different story, it is likely to be the preserve of trade authors.

> $1500 may well cover extra enhancements that make the transition at the
> high end more appealing to authors at this time. 

  PLoS can use the 9 Million subsidy that they already have received
  for that transition. Institutional monies will better spent on
  institutional archiving, or participation in discipline based
  initiatives such as arXiv.org, RePEc, or rclis.org.


  Cheers,

  Thomas Krichel                      mailto:krichel at openlib.org
                                 http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                             RePEc:per:1965-06-05:thomas_krichel