Yes, The AAA’s new ‘open access’ ‘journal’ is just as disappointing as everyone thought it would be | Savage Minds Backup

"When the American Anthropological Association announced that it would create an ‘open access’ ‘journal’, most people in the anthropology’s public sphere were skeptical. Now that it has launched, Open Anthropology turns out to be just as disappointing as everyone thought it would be ... The new ‘journal’ is not ‘open access’: all of the material on it is being released temporarily for a six month window, at which point it will be closed again. True, older material will be available for everyone, but this has been the AAA’s longstanding policy, not something new that has come to the journal. This is also not a ‘journal’ in that it does not publish new peer reviewed papers. Open Anthropology is a curated reprint service — it puts together themed issues of previously published material. These sorts of curated best-of selections are now very popular in the world of academic journals for two reasons: first, because they provide free samples of journals to keep it popular and thus force libraries to buy it and second, because it creates the illusion that the journal cares about open access thereby placating the less perceptive open access advocates out there. We knew the Open Anthropology would be broken in these ways before the first issue appeared. Now that it is out, one wonders: even given how broken this model is, are they at least publishing accessible work with real value, and making it more valuable by curating it in an intelligent way? The answer, unfortunately, is no ..."