Beyond Open: Expanding Access to Scholarly Content

"Although open access has only recently become established as a business model, publishers have been providing some degree of public access to content for much longer—primarily through philanthropic programs. These programs are intended to provide readers who can’t afford to pay for a subscription (such as researchers in developing countries, patients, and their caregivers) with access to the content they need. In many cases, this access is completely free of charge; in others, it is very deeply discounted. This paper will describe and, where possible, evaluate some of the major public/low-cost access initiatives, as well as consider some possible ways forward. One of the earliest such initiatives was the New School for Social Research’s Journal Donation Project (JDP); it was launched in 1990 in response to the critical need for scholarly journals in the former Soviet Union and in East and Central Europe, where they had been unavailable for almost 45 years. The JDP now works with 246 libraries in 25 countries to provide free or deeply discounted access print subscriptions (many of which now also include online access). These countries include Russia, Nigeria, Cuba, and Vietnam, as well as countries throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe. The free access may be granted by the publisher or sponsored by a foundation grant, and the JDP currently provides subscriptions to over 4,000 journals from more than 200 publishers. Because the project is primarily print-based, usage information is not available. More recent publisher-supported public access initiatives include Research for Life, the International Network for Access to Scientific Publications (INASP), and Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), all of which—as part of their mission—provide online access to scholarly content for libraries and researchers in developing world countries. Other public access initiatives include patientACCESS, which provides access for patients and their caregivers and Access to Research, which provides access to UK public library users. In addition, the Emergency Access Initiative (EAI) provides temporary free access to biomedicine titles to healthcare professionals, librarians, and the public, following a disaster. I will outline each of these and, where available, provide recent data on usage and reach ..."