http://library.duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/2008/11/25/calling-for-better-policies/ Duke's source for advice and information about copyright and publication issues Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:32:11 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://library.duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/2008/11/25/calling-for-better-policies/comment-page-1/#comment-299831 Sandy Thatcher Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:05:50 +0000 http://library.duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/?p=1071#comment-299831 Overlooked here is the hypocrisy of universities that call for more sharing of scholarly work yet are unwilling to subsidize their own universities presses to the extent that would allow them to do just this. Instead, they require presses to rely on the marketplace to generate 90% of their operating revenue and thereby compel those presses to rely on copyright protection to meet those financial targets, which the universities themselves set! There are, of course, many universities, like Georgia State, that contribute nothing to operating the system of scholarly communication and benefit from the existence of other universities that support presses to publish their own faculty's work so that they can get tenure and promotion, all the while reproducing the works published by those other presses with no compensation at all. We in university press publishing would be far more sympathetic to universities in their call for open access if they really showed themselves willing, at the top levels, to shoulder the financial burden of making the shift to an OA model. Overlooked here is the hypocrisy of universities that call for more sharing of scholarly work yet are unwilling to subsidize their own universities presses to the extent that would allow them to do just this. Instead, they require presses to rely on the marketplace to generate 90% of their operating revenue and thereby compel those presses to rely on copyright protection to meet those financial targets, which the universities themselves set! There are, of course, many universities, like Georgia State, that contribute nothing to operating the system of scholarly communication and benefit from the existence of other universities that support presses to publish their own faculty’s work so that they can get tenure and promotion, all the while reproducing the works published by those other presses with no compensation at all. We in university press publishing would be far more sympathetic to universities in their call for open access if they really showed themselves willing, at the top levels, to shoulder the financial burden of making the shift to an OA model.

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