The funding agencies in the U.S. typically provide a) publication
page-charges by the journals; b) "indirect costs" which are used to
fund the library purchase of journals as well as run the campus. The
notion that taxpayers "should not pay twice" seems to say that a) and
b) should be ended. Furthermore no one will need to pay for a journal
subscription to read the contents, which (I predict) will lead to a
very large falloff in (c) paid subscriptions. The petition will mean
journals that get their funds from a-b-c, will be sharply curtailed
financially. (there are also membership societies that have journals
and I think they will lose a lot of subscribers too.) So who will
step in to support the academic journals?? the taxpayers? the tuition
payers? the foundations? I fear none of them will.
Richard Jensen
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