For Open Access Monographs, Peter Pays Paul. Who Pays Peter?

The underlying economic assumption of the movement for open access monographs is that provosts will pay for what librarians will not. Never mind that libraries get their funding through the provost’s office; what matters is the shell game: move the money around and somehow or other it will grow in size. And if it does indeed grow, what’s not to like?

Here is how this works. If we go back a couple decades, we had a university press world that was partly supported by sales to libraries. Over the years the percentage of press books purchased by libraries has dropped.