Open Access Publishing And Scholarly Societies: A Guide

Abstract

assess the options available to them for the future of their journal publishing programmes. Though the option of keeping the status quo of subscription-based journals is discussed, the focus is on conversion of existing journals to open access, either in one go, or via an intermediate managed transition phase. This guide doesn’t address issues to do with the conversion to electronic publishing, and neither those to do with basic business planning. The latter have been dealt with in an earlier publication by the Open Society Institute: Guide to Business Planning for Converting a Subscription-based Journal to Open Access, Edition 3, February 20041. It is assumed that journals under consideration are currently operating with a satisfactory inflow of article submissions and also that they are either already available in electronic form, or that the choice is already taken to publish them electronically. Whilst electronic publishing is a sine qua non for open access, it is fast becoming a condition of being able to survive in journal publishing regardless of whether the journal is open access or operating on a subscription model. This guide also doesn’t address issues to do with library budget concerns other than in the context of the diminishing sustainability of the traditional subscription model of scholarly journal publishing.