Review of “The State of Open Access,” interviews by Richard Poynder (original) (raw)

2014, Collection Management

reports on the current state of open access (OA) through a series of interviews spanning the perspectives of scientists, open access advocates, librarians, and publishers. Poynder has been writing about open access for over a decade and has become the de facto chronicler of the movement. As of this writing, he has published thirteen interviews and more are expected to be released. While all are useful in gauging the open access movement from its most vocal positions, the perspective of publishers is most revealing for what lies ahead for collections managers. This perspective is represented by Joseph Esposito, a publishing consultant and contributor to the blog, The Scholarly Kitchen, Anthony Durniak, an executive at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Alexander Grossmann, professor of publishing management and former academic publishing executive, Cameron Neylon, Advocacy Director of the Public Library of Science (PLOS), and Sven Fund, Chief Executive Officer of De Gruyter. The market economics of open access will determine how publishers will accommodate this growing demand for openness. Esposito states that open access is "a useful, marginal activity that opens up a new class of customers through the author-pays model and that it would be subject to the laws of market economics." While advocates may argue the merits of serving the interests of scholarly inquiry, these arguments have little bearing on how publishers have been approaching this demand. This can be seen in the commercialization of open access through the hybrid model and the emergence of the mega journal.