At a severe risk of offending Stevan, I write to say that my University has practised an almost-OA policy for at least 15 years that falls into neither the Green nor Gold category. (BTW did you know that these are the two Australian sporting colours?)
We subscribe to the online journals our researchers make a great deal of use of (that's free to them, but not to the University), but the difference is that we offer a free (to the researcher) automated document delivery service to any researcher (includes PhD candidates) for an article we do not subscribe to. There is a delay sure, but it is the same delay as the Request-A-Copy button, and more certain. The University meets the cost, so the researcher sees it as free. This is not a solution for developing countries, but for an intelligent first-world university it sure is. I have used the service at least 100 times. It enables us to unsubscribe little used journals and win, and it makes it easier to be right up to date at the far end of the world's communication lines. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania. Australia From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Rick Anderson Sent: Tuesday, 17 September 2013 2:15 AM To: David Solomon Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci); Friend, Fred; LibLicense-L Discussion Forum; SPARC Open Access Forum Subject: [GOAL] Re: [sparc-oaforum] Re: Disruption vs. Protection Would you really consider dropping a journal with say 70% percent of the content available after a year? I'm not a librarian but I just wonder how much of a difference allowing immediate archiving of the accepted version really makes in subscription decisions. It depends. Obviously, a subscription provides enhanced access over green repository access. But as I mentioned before, the less central a journal is to my institution's curricular and research focus, the more willing I'll be to settle for less-than-ideal access. If I had a generous materials budget, the calculus would be different-but the combination of a relatively stagnant budget and constantly/steeply-rising journal prices means that I have to settle for solutions that are less than ideal. One less-than-ideal solution is to maintain a subscription despite the fact that 70% of the journal's content is available immediately (or after a year). That solution is attractive because it provides more complete and convenient access, but it's less than ideal because it ties up money that can't be used to secure access to a journal that is not green at all. Another less-than-ideal solution is to cancel the subscription and rely on green access. The downside of that approach is that repository access is a pain and may be incomplete; the upside is that it frees up money that I can use to provide access to another needed journal that offers no green access. These issues are complex. The subscription decisions we make in libraries are binary (either your subscribe or you don't), but the criteria we have to use in making those decisions are not binary-we're typically considering multiple criteria (relevance, price, cost per download, demonstrated demand, etc.) that exist on a continuum. One thing is for certain, though: the more a journal's content is available for free, and the quicker it becomes available for free, the less likely it is that we'll maintain a subscription. I think that's the only rational position to take when there are so many journals out there that our faculty want, and that we're not subscribing to because we're out of money. --- Rick Anderson Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections Marriott Library, University of Utah Desk: (801) 587-9989 Cell: (801) 721-1687 rick.ander...@utah.edu
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