Guest Editorial: Journal Costs: Perception and Reality in the Dialogue | Thompson | College & Research Libraries

"As the debate on journal costs heats up, librarians are seeking or creating new opportunities for dialogue with publishers through ALA committees, conferences, retreats, and, ironically, journals. My own experiences wrestling with the issue have convinced me that this well-intentioned attempt at reason is doomed because it is founded on the false premise that the publishers whose journals are bankrupting us are earnest partners in the business of higher education....

In the long run, though, we hold the most important cards. The raw material of scholarly publishing, the research and writing, originates within the research community, as does the copyright to it. The commercial publishers are in the information conduit for historical and anachronistic reasons; there is no technical or economic reason why they must remain a part of it. Unthinkable as it might have seemed until very recently, the idea of the academy retaking control of the bulk of scholarly publishing is being forced into consideration by the practices of the commercial publishers themselves. Their bills simply cannot be paid indefinitely, and something must give.

I suspect that the sleeping giant of higher education is about to wake up to this problem, and that a long-term solution will be mandated by the faculties and chief administrators of universities and colleges, and by the professional societies. After all, scholarly information originates here in the academy; there's no reason why it shouldn't become a financial asset for education rather than a liability. If, in the distant future, ''every use is metered and charged for," I hope to find Robert Maxwell on the paying, rather than the receiving, end."