Peter Suber - Google+ - Benefits of open access for publishers A new paper from…

"A new paper from EBSCO and Red Sage Consulting reports the results of a survey of different sectors of the 'academic information supply chain' on the benefits and drawbacks of OA. The survey targeted libraries, publishers, agents/intermediaries, and consortia representatives -- but not researchers. 'The Impact of Open Access: The Future of the Academic Information Supply Chain' http://www2.ebsco.com/fr-fr/Documents/Papers/3_The-Impact-of-Open-Access.pdf Most of the OA pros and cons you've heard many times before, including the list of publisher fears or objections at pp. 24-25. What's seldom seen is a decent list of the benefits for publishers. I excerpt it here ... Comment: I like the way the list asserts that maximum dissemination is a benefit for publishers, not just for authors and readers.  I like the way it enumerates the financial benefits of OA, even for publishers, without pausing to undercut them as inadequate or inferior to the financial benefits of TA. How the balance sheets compare, and what counts as adequate, are properly left to a different kind of inquiry.  The final entry is one-sided, as if OA were better suited to second-rate articles than first-rate articles. This is an old canard. It falsely assumes that the 'top journals' are all TA today and must always be TA. It falsely assumes that a first-rate paper becomes second-rate when submitted to an OA journal or deposited in an OA repository.   The list is still incomplete and doesn't discuss how OA can improve a journal's citations, impact, prestige, and submissions. But I've discussed these benefits elsewhere and won't go over that ground here.  <http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4552042>