Let's not see open access as a threat : convergence and divergence among research librarians and academic publishers on public access to the scholarly literature
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The now widespread recognition of the benefits of open access (OA) to research and scholarship has brought the global system of scholarly publishing to a historic turning point, as well as an impasse as the key stakeholders differ on how best to achieve the goal of universal OA. This thesis builds on quantitative work measuring the progress of OA by analyzing the positions and values of research librarians and scholarly publishers around this topic. Utilizing a survey of librarians (n = 188) and interviews with commercial and nonprofit publishers (n = 20), participants were asked to respond to a model of OA involving "subscription-equivalent transition" in terms of library costs, to solicit what was valued and what was most concerning. It was found that librarians and nonprofit publishers generally agreed that OA is integral to the future of scholarship; which was not the case among commercial publishers, who were qualified in their support, to the point of seeing it as potentially detrimental to scholarly publishing. Both sets of stakeholders recognized the dangers posed by library free ridership under OA publishing models. Librarians viewed subscription-equivalent arrangements more favorably than other dominant OA models. Both commercial and non-commercial publishers considered the subscription-equivalent model not an attractive option, but with varying justifications: nonprofits perceived greater risk due to their smaller market share, while commercial publishers sought to preserve their profit-making and growth imperatives. Librarians and publishers were mixed in their perceptions of the prevailing article processing charges (APC) model: it was recognized among some librarians as a viable transition path for some disciplines, and by others as inefficient and unscalable. Some publishers saw APCs as desirable an OA for providing authors with a choice. These results suggest, in the short term, opportunities for cooperation between librarians and nonprofit publishers to engage in cooperative models—that leverage mission alignment, financial transparency, and assurance contracts to sustain revenues—to transition from selling content to OA publishing service models. Despite findings of damaged trust between both parties, librarians indicated their willingness to enter into financially neutral models. Rather than seeing OA as a threat, the vastly greater potential for open science to address global issues suggests we are at a historic moment: where, through mutual compromise and reconciliation, we may achieve a digital information commons through cooperation.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2019; ©2019 |
| Publication date | 2019; 2019 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Naim, Kamran |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Willinsky, John, 1950- |
| Thesis advisor | Willinsky, John, 1950- |
| Thesis advisor | Antonio, Anthony Lising, 1966- |
| Thesis advisor | Labaree, David F, 1947- |
| Degree committee member | Antonio, Anthony Lising, 1966- |
| Degree committee member | Labaree, David F, 1947- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Graduate School of Education. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Kamran Naim. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Graduate School of Education. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2019 by Kamran Naim
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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