Publishing companies recognize the benefits of open access when money is involved

When the open-access movement first started making progress against the publishing industry, the industry fought hard to claim that open access did not have the perceived benefit that some authors were claiming that it did: two to six times more citations for being open access (Harnad 2004). They published an article in the Journal of Informetrics (an Elsevier journal) entitled “Do open access articles have greater citation impact?: A critical review of the literature” (Craig et al. 2007).

Two things are interesting about this.

First, the article’s title (not the subtitle) was exactly the same as a popular article published by Kristin Antelman in 2004 in an open access library journal. Were they trying to outmaneuver the article in the search engines?

Second, the publishing industry made their article open access on their own web page, presumably to increase exposure to their ideas.

Fast forward 5-10 years and we see the publishing companies embracing open access. For example, here is Springer’s white paper touting “increased visibility and exposure” for those choosing open access for their articles.

Of course, the publishing companies aren’t giving away open access for free, or even a reasonable price. How much? Thousands of dollars.

At the recent American Meteorological Society Publications Commission meeting, I heard that the $800 fee for making AMS articles open access (for two years before the whole volume becomes open access) has had few takers. Perhaps the price for open access is too steep for many, given the already perceived advantage that publishing companies have?

(Image from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln)