Harvard memo encourages open access because of high costs

[Jeffrey Spies]

A colleague sent this to me earlier:

http://techland.time.com/2012/04/26/if-harvard-cant-afford-academic-journal-subscriptions-maybe-its-time-for-an-open-access-model/#ixzz1tAmmDpdN 

The memo includes:

Even though scholarly output continues to grow and publishing can be expensive, profit margins of 35% and more suggest that the prices we must pay do not solely result from an increasing supply of new articles … The Faculty Advisory Council to the Library, representing university faculty in all schools and in consultation with the Harvard Library leadership,  reached this conclusion: major periodical subscriptions, especially to electronic journals published by historically key providers, cannot be sustained: continuing these subscriptions on their current footing is financially untenable.

and 

Consider submitting articles to open-access journals, or to ones that have reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to open access.

That's a big move in the right direction!

[Jesse Chandler]

Elsevier is publicly traded with a market cap of about 10 billion USD.
A controlling stake in it could be acquired for around 5 billion. Here
is a guide of the largest university endowments

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/06/28/10-universities-with-largest-financial-endowments

If universities are so unhappy with the costs, and Elsevier is making
so much money, perhaps they should just form a consortium and buy it.

On Apr 26, 2:37 pm, Jeffrey Spies <jsp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A colleague sent this to me earlier:
>

> http://techland.time.com/2012/04/26/if-harvard-cant-afford-academic-j...

[Don Moore]

It would be cheaper and better for the scientific cause if the faculties instead abandoned commercial publishers and moved to open access journals. It would be a good investment for our universities, granting agencies, and government institutions to pay us to make the switch. But I can also think of a few problems with them doing that...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: openscienc...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:openscienc...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jesse
> Chandler
> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 2:08 PM
> To: Open Science Framework
> Subject: [OpenScienceFramework] Re: Harvard memo encourages open
> access because of high costs
>
> Elsevier is publicly traded with a market cap of about 10 billion USD.
> A controlling stake in it could be acquired for around 5 billion. Here is a guide
> of the largest university endowments
>
> http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/06/28/10-
> universities-with-largest-financial-endowments
>
> If universities are so unhappy with the costs, and Elsevier is making so much
> money, perhaps they should just form a consortium and buy it.
>
> On Apr 26, 2:37 pm, Jeffrey Spies <jsp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > A colleague sent this to me earlier:
> >
> > http://techland.time.com/2012/04/26/if-harvard-cant-afford-academic-j...
> >
> > The memo includes:
> >
> > Even though scholarly output continues to grow and publishing can be
> >
> > > expensive, profit margins of 35% and more suggest that the prices we
> > > must pay do not solely result from an increasing supply of new

> > > articles . The Faculty Advisory Council to the Library, representing