Economic Implications Of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models

Financial pressures - reducing budgets and increasing prices have been one of the key drivers in the search for alternative, open-access-based publishing models, particularly in the higher education sector. Houghton's case study describes the ways in which he used lifecycle and costing techniques in a macro-economic modelling approach to test the extent to which new methods of publishing were more cost-beneficial to research and development activity than existing ones. He found that there was a significant return on investment especially through cost-savings over a transitional period of 20 years in all the countries studied, and for research libraries in particular, even though there was a degree of variation as a result of regional factors. He describes and discusses the methodology used, which incorporated process mapping, activity costing and macroeconomic modelling using a modified version of the Solow-Swan model. There remain questions of sustainability, though archiving policies, as described by Houghton, should do much to improve the likelihood of long-term viability, especially if projected savings can be achieved.