Open-Access Scholarly Publishing in Economic Perspective

Abstract

What is the prospect for migrating scholarly journals from paper to digital formats in a way that lowers university expenditures? Although many journals are published digitally, at least so far, the digital format complements paper, increasing university expenditures. Open-access publications that are free to readers and financed by publication fees paid by authors and their agents may both lower costs and allow scholarship to reach a larger audience. However, gains to universities may depend on open-access being quality-assured and controlled by not-for-profit publishers. Potential savings for a typical U.S. research library might be on the order of $2.3 million per year even as the same level of effort goes to reviewing and editing published articles as at present. To launch the initiative, provosts might adopt policies to support publication fees and not-for-profit publishers might invest in start up funds for editing and marketing open-access journals.

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