The Cost of Knowledge

There have been a few articles in the Guardian recently on the cost of accessing academic journals, especially from one of the largest publisher's Elsevier. They can be found here and here.

The focus of these articles has been on the cost to academics and libraries within academic institutions; however, I thought I'd add my tuppence and say that only half the story has been presented. The publishers argue that they offer value for money and that they provide a valuable service but their profit margins and librarians budget deficits tell another story. Elsevier say that the charge for access to one of their journal articles is, on average $2. Did they accidently include a their director and shareholder payments as a minus figure in the calculation of the mean? As a non-affiliated individual I would have to typically pay$35 or more for a few sheets of text!

Although I'm not involved in research anymore, I still like to use evidence based practice in my job and to do so access to the most recent knowledge is imperative. However, my employer, as a non-academic institution, does not have the resources to pay for a variety of subscriptions to support me. It does not offer value for money to pay for journal access article by article, especially if I find that I didn't use any of the knowledge gained for my work. Result....I have to do without.The bigger picture is that research with wide application is rarely widely disseminated to those who actually need it.Public funds are wasted and the potential economic benefit of our universities is not realised.

Elsevier and the like can use their publicists all they like to create spin but most of us know that the reality is somewhat different. Solution......the government must legislate to ensure that all publicly funded institutions only publish in open access journals with immediate access to all!