Beyond the Battle for Open Access | Library Babel Fish

"The Big Five publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, and Sage) who own the rights to a majority of published scientific and social science research are adjusting to a world in which open access has finally gained traction among the authors who provide their raw material. Ironically, it’s not because librarians argued for years that the profits were too high and too few people had access. It’s because reputation metrics only work if publications can circulate as freely as possible through whatever channels enable that circulation and tally up the reputational score. The Big Five are happy to oblige. Open access has become a profitable new revenue stream for the same old companies, even as libraries still face pressure to subscribe to pricey journal packages....

[The UC cancellation] is a courageous and necessary act of resistance. More institutions should use their leverage and press harder to avoid paying for both author fees and subscriptions to the same outfits. (Note: it’s really only in fields where there is funding for research that an open access model that relies on author-side fees makes any sense; there are lots of other models for fields where there isn’t grant money floating around.) Universities will have to muster up the courage that UC faculty are showing to avoid creating a new normal that sustains obscene profits at public expense....

But . . . open access isn’t the only place where new profits can be made. Elsevier and its parent RELX have been scooping up companies that provide services to researchers. They bought Mendeley. They bought bepress and SSRN. They bought Aries. They bought Hivebench and Plum Analytics and Sci Val. They’ve partnered with University College London to found a Big Data Institute to further refine their grasp of analytics and the lives of research communities. They want the work of researchers to be the raw material for a new kind of profitable business, one that’s woven into everything researchers do. ..."