Beware ‘naive’ switch to ‘utopian’ diamond journals, warns editor
peter.suber's bookmarks 2025-05-18
Summary:
"Diamond open-access journals are too reliant on unpaid academic labour and the goodwill of university libraries to remain financially sustainable, according to the founding editor of a well-regarded social science journal who has blamed the switch to the free-to-read, free-to-publish model for her publication’s demise.
Announcing her decision to wind up Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation, which has been published twice a year since 2006, Ursula Huws said the “well-meaning but naive” decision by her publisher, Pluto Journals, to move the journal to diamond open access (DOA) in 2021 had removed crucial sales and subscription income that covered editorial costs and labour."