Free research access for all to cost Australia an arm and a leg
peter.suber's bookmarks 2022-11-12
Summary:
"The proposal by Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley for an open access model that enshrines a national debt to international publishers is fundamentally flawed.
The world-first deal with international publishers to provide Australian readers with free access to the publisher’s research catalogues is likely to come with a hefty bill that will hurt the federal government’s budget bottom line.
The national agreement with the international publishers is likely to be subject to hefty increases in the annual fee after the initial agreement term expires....
There are two parts to this issue.
The first issue is the increasing cost of publishing.
Open access publishing is, for some publishers, a license to print money. Large international publishers turn over billions annually.
The Article Processing Charges can be as much as $5,000 for an article in a high-profile journal. Large international publishers can publish more than one hundred journals and high-profile journals can publish more than 15,000 articles per year.
The second issue is the cost to access research publications that are behind paywalls. Dr Foley told InnovationAus that her office had estimated that “academic libraries are paying between $350-to-$400 million to publishers every year for research access”. ..."