What we get for our money
Dutch academic libraries and Elsevier have at last come to a contract for a Big Deal, after negotiations quite a bit lengthier even than the usual onerous run. As part of the deal, some Dutch researchers will be able to publish “free” (scare quotes because it is of course not free; the researchers simply will not see the price itemized) in hybrid Elsevier journals.
The first stab at analysis the Loon has seen is Peter Suber’s; any analysis is quite brave at this juncture, because we have so few details of the agreement. This is, of course, normal; non-disclosure still rules the land of the Big Deal.
The Loon is therefore not faulting Suber in the slightest for what she believes to be an unmistakable error in analysis. Of the price Suber says:
We don’t know how much the Dutch universities must now pay for the Elsevier big deal. Clearly Elsevier raised its price so that a certain number of APCs from Dutch researchers could be considered built-in or pre-paid. But we don’t know the size of the price increase. The VSNU apparently signed a non-disclosure agreement. It says in its FAQ that it cannot disclose the price because that is “of course, sensitive competitive information.” Price is only sensitive competitive information for Elsevier, not the universities.
It’s a pity that the price of the agreement is secret. If other universities knew the price, they could bargain more effectively with Elsevier (and other publishers). Because they don’t know the price, this success will spread more slowly than otherwise. This cuts against VSNU’s hope that other universities will take the same steps, just as it cuts against lobbying claims often made by Elsevier and other publishers that open-access initiatives “interfere with the market”.
Come now, the Loon knows Suber has read Ted Bergstrom’s work. The price is, as it always was, as it always is everywhere, “whatever Elsevier can squeeze out.” There is no rationally-set, cost- or even profit-based “the price” such that “the price plus X” is a rationally-set, cost- or even profit-based price for open access. Neither this price nor this markup exists. They are mirages, illusions, phantasms.
The Dutch were not negotiating price other than incidentally in a vacuum, the same information vacuum and lousy BATNA landscape every library negotiates price inside. The Dutch simply negotiated what they were getting for their money. They walked out of the negotiation with a key precedent vis-à-vis Elsevier, and should be applauded for it.
(It is not a key precedent in the grand scheme of things; Springer has agreed to similar before, with California for example. This is, to the best of the Loon’s knowledge, the first time Elsevier has done so, however.)
Price is regrettably immaterial because big-pig publisher pricing is always ridiculous. What has changed is that ridiculous prices are for once going for something other than paywalls: the Dutch just moved the Overton window. Good for VSNU, and the Loon hopes many follow in their footsteps.