(24 Apr 2024) Since the Great Recession, librarians have learned as best they can to manage an annual serials subscription model that inevitably outpaced flat or declining collection budgets. Many librarians lauded the development of Open Access (OA) publishing models, which offered, at least initially, to help solve the problem of an unsustainable and inequitable scholarly communications ecosystem while simultaneously addressing a growing interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In the past year, the idea that, with appropriate guardrails, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can also play a role in changing scholarly communications has risen to the fore.
But can OA, DEI, and AI ever live up to their promise of an affordable, equitable and sustainable publishing ecosystem? While the serials market is quickly shifting to Open Access, the long-term sustainability of all current OA models remains questionable, at least in the United States. And the largest journal publishers now hold a greater share of the market than ever before, as the Read & Publish and Article Processing Charge (APC) sales models for OA have swept to dominance.
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