Report: Six Month OA Mandate Would Cut Journal Subscriptions By Almost Half

The U.K.’s Publishers Association released a report suggesting that libraries would cancel 65 percent of arts, humanities and social sciences journal subscriptions, and 44 percent of scientific, technical and medical ones, if the United Kingdom adopted an across-the-board open access mandate.  ‘The potential effect of making journals free after a six month embargo’ was commissioned by The Publishers Association and the Association of Learned, Professional and Society Publishers [ALPSP]. Some 950 libraries around the world were sent surveys; 210 responded, of which 159 were from higher education libraries.  Graham Taylor, Director of Educational, Academic and Professional Publishing at The Publishers Association, said: ‘The findings of the report are testament to the fact that a six month embargo period is too short for the ‘green’ model of open access. The Publishers Association is in full support of a funded version of open access as we hope will be recommended by the report of the Finch Committee.’  The Finch Committee, officially known as the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings,  is made up of representatives from universities, research funders, ‘the research community,’ scholarly publishers, and libraries, and is scheduled to produce a final report this month.  Audrey McCulloch, Chief Executive of The Association of Learned, Professional and Society Publishers, said: ‘ALPSP is very concerned about the effect this may have on non-profit publishers, many of whom may not survive...’  The [current] report’s findings make an interesting counterpoint to an analysis by American’s National Institute of Health, which concluded that the NIH’s 12 month mandate entailed no evident harm to publishers."