The tension of Open Access: how not-for-profit publishers are reacting Sally Morris Chief Executive, Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers

What is ALPSP? The international trade association for not-for-profit publishers and those who work with them Over 300 members in over 30 countries Representation, advocacy, research, professional development, information, advice, good practice guidelines, collective initiatives

What do I mean by not-for-profit publishers? Learned societies, professional associations University presses Non-governmental organisations, charities… Nearly 50% of journals in Ulrich’s published by NFPs Many more published by commercial publishers on behalf of NFPs

What’s different about NFP publishers? Higher citations, lower prices Most NFPs do make money ‘it’s what you do with it that counts’ NFPs do not pay taxes, or distribute dividends

What do NFP publishers do with publishing surpluses? Societies support their community through: Conferences, research funding and grants, bursaries Public education Support of the society itself University Presses support their university

What do I mean by Open Access? Unrestricted free access to research articles for everyone Ways of achieving this: Self-archiving Personal, institutional, subject-based Preprints, postprints, final published version Open Access publishing Delayed OA Optional/hybrid OA Full, immediate OA

What problem is Open Access trying to solve? Library funding crisis? Inability of the ‘taxpayer’ to access research? Inability of scholars to access all research?

Why might NFP publishers support Open Access? In keeping with mission to disseminate subject In keeping with public education mission Should scale with research funding (unlike library budgets)

Why might NFP publishers worry about Open Access? Is it viable? Do authors want it? If not, enforced adoption could destroy valuable journals If yes, many experts predict reduction in profitability – direct effect on activities which benefit community

What are NFP publishers doing about it? 1 – Self-archiving ALPSP research (2003) showed 34% of publishers permitted preprint archiving, 60% postprint/published version No difference between commercial and NFP ROMEO project found very similar figures Elsevier’s recent change of policy – now >80% of journals

What are NFP publishers doing about it? 2 – OA publishing Delayed OA 9% in ALPSP study, predominantly NFP Increased since publication of DC principles Partial/hybrid OA Numerous experiments Almost all NFP before Springer Open Choice Full, immediate OA Over 1200 journals in DOAJ Mostly NFP apart from BioMed Central

What happens next? Things won’t change unless scholars change their behaviour Do they want to? Should they be forced to? Self-archiving is dependent on journals – but it could ultimately damage or destroy them Is that what scholars want? We need to know if OA publishing is viable ALPSP/AAAS/HighWire research - financial and non-financial effects of each type of OA publishing