Guest Post - Mexican Publishers Face Significant Challenges, but They’re Uniquely Equipped to Meet Them - The Scholarly Kitchen

Post by Rachel Maund, Director of UK-based Marketability (UK) Ltd, an international publishing consultancy specializing in marketing and training

"Latin America is way ahead of anywhere else when it comes to publishing open access (OA), embracing it from the start for both journals and books. Unlike their US and European counterparts, publishers didn’t have a sustainable commercial model to protect. Academics in the region are committed to OA as they not only believe that research should be freely available, but crucially that this is how to get recognition internationally. Distribution of content is managed by the scholarly community, with their own well-established (over two decades or more) journal platforms and repositories, and supported by public funds as part of the public infrastructure needed for research. APCs are not a feature of the Latin American OA model. They’re considered to be unrealistic in the region and potentially to threaten research integrity by continuing to favor rich institutions. And this definitely means that academic authors see their publishers as allies, without the tensions or hostility that we continue to see between the two communities elsewhere. Digital subject repositories have been developed in Mexico since the 1990s, with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) playing a leading role in developing visibility for OA journals."