From a message of Murray Shepherd to IATUL -list
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Asunción Trénor
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: Murray Shepherd 
To: iatul-l 
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 11:57 PM
Subject: [Iatul-l] 


Yale Drops Institutional Support of BioMed Central 

The Yale University Library has cancelled its institutional support of pioneering commercial open access (OA) publisher BioMed Central (BMC), citing skyrocketing costs. In an announcement posted the Cushing/Whitney Medical and Kline Science Libraries blog, Yale librarians said the BMC "experiment in Open Access publishing has proved unsustainable." Yale's support ended with articles in submission to BMC as of July 27. 

Under the BMC institutional plan, the library covered 100 percent of author processing charges (APCs) for Yale authors, resulting in a rapid, significant increase in costs. In 2005, BMC charged the Yale Library $4,658. In 2006, those costs jumped to $31,625. In 2007, the library was charged $29,635 through June 2007, with another $34,965 in potential additional charges pending for articles under submission. The rapid rise in costs comes after BMC changed its institutional access model beginning in 2005 from a flat fee, based on institution size, to an estimated "per-article-published" model. BMC does, however, still offer a "Supporters Membership" option, under which libraries can negotiate a flat annual fee that entitles researchers at that institution a 15 percent discount on their APCs. Compounding the financial ramifications of BMC's institutional membership change, BMC's APCs have also risen since 2005, to an average of $1615 from BMC's original standard fee of $525. 

In 2004, when the change to BMC's institutional plan was first announced, librarians reacted with skepticism, with one librarian speculating the new "per article" model was potentially "suicidal" in terms of its effect on library budgets. BMC publisher Matt Cockerill told the LJ Academic Newswire the shift was necessary, however, for the development of open access publishing. "Institutional deals, started as primarily promotional arrangements to increase awareness of open access, and to encourage pioneering authors to give it a try," he explained. Over time, they "necessarily matured into arrangements which need to provide a solid financial basis for OA publishing longer term." 

But with the number of BMC journals and articles growing, does Yale's departure suggest that BMC's model has set the company up to be a victim of its own success? Cockerill noted that under institutional memberships as more OA articles are published, more charges will accrue. He agreed that Yale's departure emphasizes "the importance of looking at open access from the perspective of the institution as a whole, rather than treating it as a pure library issue." He added, however, that it would be "wrong to draw too many conclusions" from the decision of one library at a time when "many more libraries are increasing their support for open access." He pointed to more funding sources emerging to support OA activities and noted that libraries are also beginning to see the positive impact of OA, which eliminates subscription fees and licensing issues, offering libraries "genuine savings, helping the financial transition." 

Yale's decision to cancel its membership nevertheless suggests the transition could be a trying one for many budget-strained libraries if they are expected both to sustain access to subscription journals and subsidize the publishing activities of faculty. Yale librarians said they support the ideal of the widest possible access to research and said they would consider renewing financial support with BMC under "a viable economic model" that would "more equitably share costs across all interested stakeholders." Cockerill said BMC would work with the Yale libraries to find "a solution for funding central institutional payment that will work for them."

 

Best wishes,

Murray

Murray Shepherd

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Waterloo, ON, Canada

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