As state money for higher education gets harder to come by, the University of Kansas is saving money wherever it can. That includes cutting back on its subscriptions to scholarly journals, some of which carry annual price tags in the thousands. But some faculty members say the strategy hurts their ability to do research. "No one can do without them," economics professor Mohamed El-Hodiri said. "They're forcing us to pick and choose. How do I know that the one I choose is the one I'm going to need tomorrow?"...But university officials said the cost of subscriptions -- which range from a few hundred dollars to $20,000 or so a year -- makes some cuts necessary. "Some publishers, they've gone crazy," El-Hodiri said. The university, which recently started a three-year review of its periodicals subscriptions, would need $1.1 million beyond its current budget to maintain its current level. The school has come up with $600,000 of that total. "That's essentially been the trend: Spend more, get less," said Bill Myers, director of library development at the university.
But with many institutions publishing research on the Internet, paper subscriptions might become unnecessary. Kansas uses its KU Scholarworks site [PS: an OA repository] to make research -- finished and unfinished -- available. "Who cares about the price of scholarly journals if the material is available?" Provost David Shulenburger said...."I think institutions like ours have gotten more versatile in trying to cope with the increasing costs of serials," [Myers] said. "The objective is to try to advance knowledge as quickly as possible."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/21/2005 09:43:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
