Tony Stankus spoke to the METRO Science Librarians SIG about Open Access Journals

Tony Stankus of the University of Arkansas spoke to the METRO Science Librarians SIG about the future of open access (OA) journals. We used Skype so that he spoke to us from his library.

Certainly if librarians had their way, all journals would be open access since our respective organizations would not have to pay for subscriptions. However, there are other players who must be considered. .The obvious advantage of OA journals is that it will increase readership. OA journals will help research become known to a wider audience. If an organization, can not afford a subscription-based journal, its researchers can not read it.

Successful journals will attract the best researchers. Thus established journals in any field will have nothing to worry about from newer OA journals. Physicists will want to publish in the Physical Review series while chemists will submit their manuscripts to the Journal of the American Chemical Society. I suppose any scientist is pleased when he/she is published in a prestigious journal, but is blind to the cost of it to the organization’s library.

Tony said that chemistry was the toughest field to start an OA journal. I just checked the Directory of Open Access Journals and noted there were 128 chemistry journals.

OA journals are most successful in biology and the medical sciences. The Public Library of Science (PLOS) and BioMed Central were the most noted publishers.

He concluded by saying that OA publishing will co-exit with subscription based models but not overtake them.