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I doubt the 10-20% number as well, but note that that "site-wide access" is essentially paid for out of research funds. It's called "overhead" and ranges from a
by jedbrown 14y ago
I doubt the 10-20% number as well, but note that that "site-wide access" is essentially paid for out of research funds. It's called "overhead" and ranges from about half of research salary to double or more, depending on the institution. The fraction of overhead spent on journal subscription tends to be higher for smaller institutions.
- cantankerous 14y agoI'm aware of overhead/indirects. They're not the only source of university funding, especially at public universities where you have tuition, course fees, a tax base, endowments, and a lot of other things, too. But, I'm not sure what you mean by saying it's half to double of research salary. I do know that overheads are typically at least 50% (and that's a very low bound for most institutions) of grant money received per grant. Naturally smaller institutions are going to spend a larger piece of their pie on something if its price doesn't scale very much compared to a larger institution.
- jedbrown 14y agoWell, when people say 50% overhead (the lower bound), they mean that the cost to the grant is `1.5*direct_cost`, not that half the grant goes to indirect costs. Anyway, research is the primary motivation for purchasing journal subscriptions. It does not make financial sense for a non-research institution to subscribe to many journals. So regardless of which budget the subscriptions are formally taken from, they come from, it should be considered a cost of research. Making the system more efficient frees up money somewhere that reduces the cost of (externally- and internally-funded) research.