David C. Prosser im Interview (VÖB-Mitt. 3-4/2011)

Quoting Prosser: "The fundamental problem is that library budgets do not scale with the international increase in research output. We need a new system that does scale and ties communication costs in to increasing research spending....In the long term open access will succeed. It best fits with the desires of researchers and research funders – for the widest dissemination of research – and it best fits with the new technology where disseminations costs fall to almost zero. Over the past ten years the subscription model has been artificially sustained by two drivers – the success of the big deals and the use of journal publications in funding and promotion decisions. The big deals have a lot of benefits, but one side-effect is that they distort the market and allow weak, underperforming journals to survive as part of the deals. If these journals stood alone, competing for subscription revenues they would fold, so hastening the move to open access. As budgetary pressures force libraries to look carefully at the number of big deals they can afford we will see a reduction in the weakest subscription journals and a growth open access journals. At the same time, the funders of research will increasingly insist on open access routes....In the medium-term we will see a mix of green open access (author selfarchive) and gold, open access journals....The publishers who will best succeed in this new environment are those who move from the model of content-owners, who mediate access to a select few, to a new model of service-providers. So the providers of peerreview services to authors, of specialized finding services to readers, of archiving services to libraries, etc. will stand most chance of success. They will realize that new models reward those who disseminate knowledge widely, not those who erect artificial barriers to knowledge. Basically, those who accept that open access will become the dominant mode of scholarly communication."