Thank you for your appreciative reply. In my opinion, the best way to get the lawyers out of the loop and reduce the cost of administration is to make the material openly available using some version of BOAI. You can then rely on the statutory provisions of copyright law for the protection of your rights and those of your authors.
As an preliminary step, you might consider adopting the least complicated licensing and pricing scheme you can devise. (As you say, "To see what AGU is doing go to http://www.AGU.org";) On Sun, 27 Jul 2003, Fred Spilhaus wrote: > David: Your observation is interesting from the point of view of > the small and mid-size publishing society. I find that the cost > of negotiating the first license, analogous to contract > administration I presume, which is clearly identifiable, can be a > large fraction of the subscription price for a relatively small > journal. > > Until we figure out how to get the lawyers out of this loop I > forsee a real increse in cost at our side as well. My deepest > concern is that changing models that we must experiment with will > continue to drag us into more complex relationships that will > further increase legal, audit and other non-productive overhead > charges. > > David Goodman wrote: > > Over the short run the general cost of providing > > service from electronic resources is about the same as paper. > > What is saved on check-in, binding, and so so on, is spent on > > contract administration, computer services, and so on. In the long run, > > it is correct that there is a savings to be expected in the net size of > > science library buildings. Already I have observed several academic > > departments reclaim library space for other needs, > > This is one of the reasons I am aware > > of the possibility academic administrators might do likewise with > > acquisition funds. (my personal view, as always) > > > -- > Fred Spilhaus Executive Director, AGU > > 2000 Florida Avenue NW Washington DC 20009 USA > Phone: +1 202 777 7510 Fax: +1 202 328 0566 > E-mail fspilh...@agu.org > To see what AGU is doing go to http://www.AGU.org > Dr. David Goodman Princeton University & Palmer School of Library and Information Science, LIU dgood...@princeton.edu
