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BioMed Central has published a response at http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcblog/entry/yale_and_open_access_publishing

I'm curious why you decided to drop out completely rather than sign on as a Supporter Level Member. It would seem that would be a way for the library to show support for OA with a relatively known cost, would offer your institutional authors a discount, but require them to come up with the remainder of the APC. I haven't been involved with BMC at all at our institution - have the APC costs risen over time as well, or are Yale authors just publishing more in the last year?

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Editor Response: The Yale University libraries support the concept of open access to research materials. Access should not be restricted by reader fees. However, the actual costs for maintaining the required infrastructure (peer review, copy editing, platform functionality, and preservation) should be supported by all stakeholders in the information life cycle.

For instance, the holders of patents generate millions of dollars based upon the use of research material, and some of these profits should support the continuing information network costs. The author and author institution charges in the BioMedCentral model require that the producers subsidize all costs, and do not have a place for other channels of support revenue. The resulting small revenue base is an untenable model, even with reduced costs due to technical improvements.

There are alternative revenue streams in other OA models. Some journals are supported by government funding, society funding, institutional funding, membership fees, and tiered subscription models. Very few OA journals are breaking even, and those that are succeeding are the few high prestige titles that can charge a very high fee per article, which would not be scaleable to all journals in all fields.

In addition to expanding the grant subsidies, which now account for perhaps 50% of the scientific publishing fees required, we call for a renewed investigation of national revenue streams such as those developed for country-wide access to information tools in the UK and Canada. This centralization would allow for economies of scale by reducing redundant financial operations across multiple libraries and allow for better coordinated reviews of benefit per cost.

"Virtual" savings from lower pricing for the new alternative publication methods have not yet provided any actual savings which could be reallocated away from traditional journals. While OA has raised awareness of outrageous pricing from certain publishers, very few journals have been significantly impacted yet. Only a few journals have jumped to less expensive publishers; and even then, package plans mean that editorial boards are instantly re-populated by the original publishers with no chance of recovering any savings.

Libraries can simply not borrow money today (to pay for possible alternatives) against potential future savings. And this would assume that a paradigm shift actually does occur.

We are interested in exploring all models that provide a viable long-term adequate revenue stream to support the required infrastructure. We can not continue to pay the rapidly escalating and unbudgetable fees proposed in the current model. Paying for a membership would only further delay the recognition of the flaw in the present model and slow down research into more acceptable models.

David

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