Open-access revolution is squeezing scientific societies’ budgets, survey shows | Science | AAAS

"For many scholarly societies, selling subscriptions to the journals they publish has historically been a key source of revenue, helping subsidize other work such as advocacy and providing scholarships. But the trend toward open-access publishing is threatening that income stream even as costs are rising, a recent survey indicates. More than 90% of the 66 societies that participated said the revenue they collect from publishing journals is not keeping pace with inflation, and about half reported a decrease....

Historically, leading society journals have tended to pursue high selectivity and low publishing volume. That started to change in the 2000s with the advent of paid open-access publishing, in which authors pay a fee to make papers free to read when published—and which critics say incentivizes quantity over quality. Many societies hoped to gradually transition away from the subscription-based model. But, “We don’t necessarily have the ability or the desire to suddenly grow” publishing volume, says Spiller, who is director of publishing at the society Applied Microbiology International. Even with open-access fees averaging about $2000 per paper among publishers of all types, societies tend to make less money than under the subscription model, Spiller says.

Rather than navigating the daunting transition to open access on their own, many societies have outsourced publishing operations to corporate giants such as Elsevier and Springer Nature in return for a negotiated percentage of revenues or profits...."