Survey of Academic Library Open Access Publication Fee Pay Practices

"This report presents data from 73 academic libraries about their open access publication fee payment practices.  The 53-page study enables its end users to answer questions such as: How much have libraries spent in the past year on publication fees for open access and hybrid journals for their institution’s authors?  How much will they spend in the next year? What percentage of libraries pay such fees at all or have plans to?  What share of these fees are paid by libraries and what share by other departments and entities of the college or university? Have academic libraries partnered with consortia or other libraries to negotiate these fees?  How many articles did the pay for in the past year?  How many do they plan to pay for in the next year? 

Data in the report is broken out for R1 and R2 research universities, for doctoral level institutions and for those offering only BA/MA degrees.  In addition the data is broken out for public and private colleges, and by enrollment and tuition levels, and other variables, including work title, age and gender of the survey participant.

Some of the report’s many findings are that:

• 35.3% of R1 research universities in the sample had a line item in their budgets for the payment of author processing fees for hybrid and open access journals
• 20.51% of public institutions sampled said that departments or entities other than the academic library at their college or university contributed to the payment of author processing fees.
• 5.88% of BA/MA granting colleges in the sample have partnered with other colleges or universities or consortia to negotiate the level of author processing fees with publishers of hybrid or open access journals...."