Scholarship cannot exist without a system of
scholarly communication: the cost of that system is a necessarycost of doing academic business. One could say that every part of
this system is subsidized—from faculty to presses to libraries—andone could equally well say that every part operates under
significant financial constraints. In the case of university-basedpublishers, institutional subsidy has declined in recent years,
forcing university presses to behave more like commercial entities.
According to Peter Givler’s “University
Press Publishing in the United States”
(External Link) (fn. 14) (originally
published in Scholarly Publishing, ed. Richard E. Abel, Lyman W.Newlin, and Katina Stauch [New York: Wiley 2002]), From 1988 to1998, the average parent institution support among reporting
presses declined from 10.4 percent of net sales to 6.3 percent, fora loss of 4.1 percent; during the same period, outside gifts and
grants increased, as a percentage of net sales, by only 1.6percent, for a net loss in non-publishing income of 2.5
percent.
The phrase “public good” often refers to the
idea that there are good things—things of special social value—thatought to be produced for free public use rather than as a
marketable commodity.
There is also an economic construct—not
unrelated, but not the same—called a “pure public good.” This moreabstract concept derives from the production and use of a good, and
it is worth noting that pure public goods (for example, airpollution) may not always be good things. The defining
characteristic of a pure public good is that one can add moreconsumers without diminishing the quantity of the good available to
others. National defense, the system of contract law (as distinctfrom litigation itself), standards, and information are all
examples of pure public goods.If, for the pure public good, thecost of adding another consumer approaches zero, then it follows as
a matter of economic efficiency that the market price ought to bezero, because to charge something for an item that costs nothing to
produce at the margin is to pass up possible value—the value of
making someone better off while doing no harm.
Common
examples of public goods are national defense, vaccinationprograms, the GPS navigation system, dams, and public art.
Education is often spoken of in these terms, and although educationis to some extent exclusive (or there would not be systems of
limited admissions), knowledge itself—as represented in scholarshipand research—is not. Thomas Jefferson put it most eloquently: “He
who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself withoutlessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light
without darkening me.”
Thomas Jefferson, “To Isaac McPherson,” 13
Aug. 1813, in Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. H. A. Washington,vol. 6 (Washington, DC: Taylor&Maury, 1853–1854)
180-81.
Private goods are a clear contrast to this: if one
person eats an apple, a second person cannot eat the same apple;but one person can teach another how to spell apple without thereby
losing that knowledge. In the case of public goods, charging aprice invariably reduces social welfare relative to what is
possible.
