On Sat, 26 Mar 2005, Subbiah Arunachalam wrote: > Friends: > > "Ann Okerson weighs the pros and cons of OA for US research libraries, > noting that institutional repositories are likely to be expensive, and > their focus in the U.S. is likely to be on locally produced scholarly > materials other than articles. Consequently: "It is unlikely that > under this kind of scenario in the US, scattered local versions of STM > articles would compete effectively with the completeness or the value > that the publishing community adds." She also suggests that library > cost savings resulting from OA journals are "unlikely, unless > substantial production cost reductions can be realised by many > categories of publisher." - in Serials: The Journal for the Serials > Community 18(1)(2005). > > Why does Ann Okerson, a respected and knowledgeable US academic > librarian, think that institutional repositories will be expensive? What > are the facts? Will leading institutions that have set up institutional > archives tell her and others how much does it cost to set up archives > and run them. > > Arun
The facts are all contrary to what Ann Okerson states. Not only are institutional archives not *likely* to be expensive, those that actually exist are de facto not expensive at all (a $2000 linux server, a few days sysad set-up time, and a few days a year maintenance). Their focus in the US and elsewhere is likely to be exactly on what university policy decides it should be (and the Berlin 3 recommendation, likely to be widely adopted now, is that the focus should be on university article output). And the purpose of self-archiving is not and never has been to "compete effectively with the completeness or the value that the publishing community adds." It is to provide access to those would-be users whose institutions cannot afford the journal's official version. Stevan Harnad
