Contexts

• Plan S
• Digital Scholarship
• The Humanities

A matter of distribution: there are 100 people in a room for a talk

• They have $10 each
• The speaker speaks for free
• The venue needs $50 to cover its staff costs
• There are 40 talks per year

Subscription logic

• Each person pays $0.50 and hears the talk
• No payment, no entry
• Each person can only afford half of the talks
• The general public cannot attend

OA with an Article Processing Charge logic

• The speaker pays the full fee ($50)
• The problem is that the speaker only has $10
• The general public and all others can attend

OA with consortial logic

• 5 people attend each talk and pay $10 each
• They let anyone else attend for free
• Everyone can hear 50% of the talks, including the public

This is how OA looks in a dry funding climate

• Is the "venue" overcharging?
• The distribution of the economics is the most important thing
• APCs do not work well in the humanities and elsewhere

How much does it cost to publish a (digital) book?

• Mellon Ithaka study (2016): $15,140 - $129,909
• (Don't tell the Deans)
• Palgrave: $95 x 200 copies = $19,000
• Palgrave: Book Processing Charge: $17,000
• CUP: Book Processing Charge: $10,000
• Ubiquity Press: Book Processing Charge: £6,020

COPIM

Our Solution for Journals

Support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

• $90,000 planning grant
• University of Lincoln, UK, 2014-2015
• $741,000 sustainability grant
• Birkbeck, University of London, UK, 2015-2018

The Subscription Model as it Exists

The OLH Library Partnership Subsidy Model

>~300 Libraries Financially Supporting the OLH in First Five Years

27 Journals on or Supported by the Platform (909 articles in first year)

Ongoing Project to "Flip" Subscription Journals

Spreading The Model