Against Austerity

Arguments for open access are usually split along two axes: the educational and the financial. On the former, it is easy to see that the progress of science and scholarship is advanced by easy, free access to research. A more equitable system of educational access benefits everyone. However, on the second front, it is also argued that open access should be less expensive for libraries, signalling the end of the serials crisis. In this talk, using data from 7 million article records, I examine the publishing practices of scholarly publishers at different levels of revenue, clearly showing that professional publishers, with high levels of revenue, consistently perform better at tasks such as digital preservation. While remaining committed to not-for-profit and mission-driven solutions, I argue that there are more important challenges for open access publishing than merely reducing costs