There are two ways to negotiate with the for-profit journal giants – give up or never surrender. Australian universities aren’t giving up.
Research publishers have had a win, with the end of an independent league table stating their “article processing charges.” Coalition S, a Euro organisation committed to publicly-funded research being free to read from first publication, has given up tracking open access pricing. The intent was to create a comparison base for negotiating publishing deals.
The project failed because publishers did not participate. The price comparator launched in September 2022, with 27 publishers representing 2000 journals providing information. It sinks with 37 houses providing data on just 500 research publications.
The failure appears due to opposition and indifference on both sides of bargaining. Publishers would not provide financial data, libraries did not make it a term of purchase agreements.
It is a defeat for Coalition S, long the strongest advocate of open access – and another win for the commercial publishers whose every concession to OA is followed by a new way to charge for content. Five years ago, the Coalition’s Plan S insisted authors keep their copyright on research articles and that publicly funded papers be open access from pub date. To which the journal giants responded with “article processing charges.”
But where Plan S has failed, the Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL) makes the case for never surrendering. CAUL has limited open access agreements with dozens of research publishers, including the for-profit big five, so that some research papers by staff at each member are free to read on publication. The agreements are funded from each university’s (undisclosed) subscription costs but there are annual caps on open access downloads, which were reached during the first agreements.
Now they are up for renewal and CAUL is going back for more, wanting no cap on access. No harm in asking, and keeping at it.
