Friday, July 27, 2007

Oxford: Traditional Publisher Illustrates Leadership in Transition to Open Access

As reported on Liblicense, Oxford has announced adjusted pricing, reflecting revenue from Open Choice articles. In some cases, the cost of a subscription has decreased quite substantially - for example, the price of Bioinformatics has decreased by 19%.

This is an excellent role model illustrating the potential for a natural, evolutionary economic transition to open access. Gradually decreasing subscription funds will gradually increase the availability of library funds for open access projects. For example, if libraries use some of the savings from Oxford subscriptions to supplement the support from funding agencies for Open Choice options, this will increase the Oxford Open Choice revenue, making further subscription pricing possible, allowing for more support for Open Choice. Libraries can contribute in a substantive way to open access solutions, by funding Open Choice for authors who do not have funding grants to cover this cost.

This illustrates the potential positive spiral in the transition to open access.

Kudos to Oxford!

This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access series.

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