Universities will experience some cost savings and conveniences arising from the more open copyright associated with OA. This is somewhat tangential to the more compelling reasons for switching to OA, of course, (the most essential of which is the need for OA to facilitate the advancement of scientific knowledge), but nonetheless might be of interest.
Over the past few years, in Canada at least, universities have had to assign or hire staff to focus on copyright issues. While OA will not immediately eliminate the need for this focus, a broad-based change to OA will reverse the trend from increasing need for this kind of support, to decreasing need. This will result in gradual cost savings of two types: staffing, and fees for copying material. University faculty and administration will also benefit from increased convenience. For example, it will be easier to compile coursepacks, copy items for classroom use (this might not be an issue in the U.S), and place materials on reserve, as there will be fewer items for which copyright checking will be necessary. This could be yet another factor which will result in a tendency to favor OA articles. If a faculty member is contemplating including an article in a coursepack or reserve collection, handing it out in class, and the article is highly desirable for students to read rather than essential, the article will be more likely to be included if it is OA. This would also be true for handing out articles at meetings, conference presentations, etc.: all else being equal, the OA article has the advantage. cheers, Heather G. Morrison Project Coordinator BC Electronic Library Network ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Phone: 604-268-7001 Fax: 604-291-3023 Email: heath...@eln.bc.ca Web: http://www.eln.bc.ca