bjoern.brembs.blog » Should public institutions not be choosing the lowest responsible bidder?
lkfitz's bookmarks 2016-12-07
Summary:
"While every major plumbing operation, every ventilation improvement and every cleaning contract needs to be signed after a competitive bidding procedure, we negotiate subscription deals behind closed doors and the signed contracts are often hidden behind non-disclosure agreements."
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“If one looks at the costs of these subscription deals, one finds that they amount to about US$5,000 per published subscription article. However, open access publishing costs (not article processing charges, APCs!) range from below US$100 to around US$500, depending on a variety of factors. Hence, publishing services which let everybody access our literature would blow out any subscription publisher if a competitive bidding process would take place!”