It is not open access that is the problem, it is profit-driven publishing models. Cancer Research UK withdraws funding for open access charges www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-o...

Infrastructure Landlords: The Rentier Capitalism of Commercial Academic Publishers This piece explores how major academic publishers are becoming “infrastructure landlords”, not just publishing research, but owning the systems around it. 👉 www.openlibhums.org/news/931/ #OpenAccess #ScholComm

As we used to say back in the day: THIIIIIIIIIIS

Libraries need to critically engage with language we use when assessing TAs/R&Ps. Out now: doi.org/10.5860/crln... with my fantastic co-authors @leighbutler.bsky.social, Jaclyn McLean, Jason Friedman, Erin Fields, and Monica Ward

We've officially launched! With our new #DiamondOpenAccess investment campaign to help libraries build a sustainable, community‑led future for scholarly publishing & support journals flipping away from costly subscription models. Read the Press release here drive.google.com/file/d/10Hgf...

We've done it again! @openlibhums.org has flipped another flagship journal to #diamond #openaccess! This follows the mass resignation of the Journal of Philosophical Logic's editorial boards from Springer Nature. The JPL editors will launch Philosophical Logic: www.openlibhums.org/news/875/.

Over the past months (and at least 11 versions!), I was lucky to work with 11 amazing colleagues on a call to action to reform academic publishing. Not another declaration, but an appeal to our powerful friends, research funders & institutions, to Stop the Drain of Scientific Publishing. 1/n

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's *scientific publishing*. We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

NIH policy had 5% compliance when it was voluntary, 50-70% compliance when it was mandatory, and got to 90% when funds were held back until compliance was fulfilled. #OASPA2025

Our analysis on possible effects of APC caps, which would limit grant money spending on publication fees, just like the NIH is considering for their updated public access policy, in the @lseimpactblog.bsky.social today 👇🏼#ScholCommLab #openaccess #publishingmarket

Yes: "Policymakers tend to see publishers as mere service providers who can be given money in exchange for open access. The reality is that good publishing is not a transaction but a community effort. Publishing cannot stand outside the communities that produce the research; it is part of research."

It's so saddening to see how a movement with such good intentions has been co-opted and commercialised to such an extent that it's effectively now just a means for channelling public money in corporate pockets. For me, if it's not Diamond I don't want to know. #OpenAccess

Proud to have played even a small role on this project! Great summary post and an excellent job by the entire IOI team. After two years of intensive research, IOI's project “Investigating "reasonable costs" to achieve public access to federally funded research and scientific data” has concluded.

NEW POST: NIH explores capping APCs: Let’s look at the evidence! We used data of NIH funded from 2025, and found that APCs for a few as 7% journals (or 6% of papers) would be fully covered by a $2K cap, 25% of journals (or 21% of papers) by a $3K cap. Read more! www.scholcommlab.ca/2025/09/03/n...

Springer Nature makes clear that federally-funded authors who want to publish in SN journals will have to pay #APCs. https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-science/us-federal-agency-compliance Submitting articles to one of SN's non-OA or subscription-based journals, to avoid the APC, is not an […]

Unfair publisher fees for deposit into repositories highlight the need for authors to exercise their rights coar-repositories.org/news-updates...

This article offers a pretty sensible argument for bringing more of publishing back under university control. There's no reason to frame it in such a clickbaity way; it has nothing to do with anything Kennedy is pushing for. www.chronicle.com/article/what...

We're excited to take this step, and to talk to other folks who are interested in experimenting. If you have something you're excited to try, reply here -- and we might even fund it. asterainstitute.substack.com/p/scientific...

So excited to see this work finally published!

New video: Championing Open Scholarship at the #USask Library #USaskResearch library.usask.ca/news/2025/ch...

The University Library #USask is now hosting diamond open access journals! No fees for readers or authors. Equitable & sustainable. We recently welcomed the Engaged Scholar Journal to our new service & helped them celebrate 10 years of publishing. #USaskResearch library.usask.ca/news/2025/10...

I disagree. Peer review offers some degree of quality assurance, but still many articles in reputable journals have major flaws. Good science can be found in reputable journals, but also on preprint servers. Conversely, bad science can be found on preprint servers, but also in reputable journals.

"As national and international conversations on scholarly publishing evolve, it is vital to recognize libraries not just as contributors, but as key players driving a more equitable and sustainable publishing system." By @ahemnason.bsky.social and colleagues. ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/cj...

Save the dates: April 30, May 14 & June 4 to learn more about #OpenAccess! SPARC is partnering w/ the Scholarly Communications Notebook team to host a 2nd round of our OA101 series. Webinars are free & open to anyone working in libraries. Register for one or all: sparcopen.org/news/2025/oa...

"Research assessment and scientific publishing are interwoven in complex ways, which means the agendas of the assessment and publishing reform movements need to be aligned as closely as possible." @ludowaltman.bsky.social www.leidenmadtrics.nl/articles/ass...

Excited to be launching Open Journals Collective today! We're working with librarians, academics & university-based publishers to replace commercial TAs with a community-led alternative. This is designed to save libraries money & tackle the rampant inequalities of global academic publishing. #UKSG25

Our response is to fight, to protect, and to build.

Oh yeah, here's the link to the videos: youtu.be/HSf79S3XkJw?... #MetricsLiteracies #MetricsLiteracy #hIndex #Bibliometrics #DORA #ResearchAssessmentReform

Happy Green OA Day! #USask researchers: the library can help make your research open access for FREE and LEGALLY through HARVEST, our repository. We also have a free Upload Service: let library staff do the work of copyright checking & upload for you. See more: library.usask.ca/news/2025/ce...

Our #APC analysis preprint was cited in a Wall Street Journal story today, along with Elsevier's response. www.wsj.com/business/med... #AcademicPublishing #MetaSci #ScholCommLab @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca

Sometimes the best that comes out of 4-year #SSHRC project are 2 amazing educational videos. Learned so much & trained students from information science, education, film, theatre... and we had tons of fun! Watch for yourself WHY YOU SHOULD STOP USING THE #H-INDEX: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSf7...

In 1890, the Tariff Act came into place in the United States. It placed tariffs on imports of up to 50%. While touted as a way to build American industry, there was also the hope it would force an annexation of Canada. It backfired. Let's learn more. 🧵1/10

When its integrity is threatened anywhere, it affects us all. That’s why today, we’re launching an Open Letter from Canadians to stand with the #StandUpForScience movement. Sign now & show your support for our American colleagues: forms.gle/Jbunjx88x7VM... #MarchFo#MarchForScience

Like everyone else - I have some thoughts on the Clarivate announcement: tinyurl.com/35jxfnwc Not just a change in the model, but a representation of a larger shift in the landscape, and the dangers of monopolies and market consolidation - threatening the core mission of libraries globally.

Today I'm pleased to announce that the BOAI, which first defined #OpenAccess, is transitioning into an org to support the development of equitable OA. For more, please see our blog post, which is being translated into Spanish and Portuguese. www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/news/boai-tr...

Nature valentines. Thanks to my Patrons for keeping me drawing www.patreon.com/birdandmoon

COMPLETE CRAP - publishers have long argued they need authors to sign over copyright "so they can protect authors' rights". But *when* do they do that? Publishers are not enforcing attribution rights (under CC BY) for the papers they have sold to LLMs at huge profit. Maybe they should start there?

End of big deals is a chance to build a better publishing system. Don’t waste a crisis—invest in more open and equitable business models, says David Prosser. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

I'm looking forward to the 1st OpenCon Librarian Community call of 2025! If you are a librarian join us to chat about using the Library Partnership Rating (LPR) to see how well a publisher aligns with library values around openness. www.opencon.community/january_2025...

Governments bending over backwards to find ways to allow AI companies to use copyrighted material for free in order to make corporate profits - but libraries have to pay millions to access the same material for educational purposes? Something’s broken here, for sure. 📚

'Grey area journals make use of the APC operating model and aim to increase the number of publications with the minimum time spend for editorial work and quality assessment.' These practices *define* commercial publishing. It makes no sense to single out MDPI and Frontiers as worse than the rest.

There seem to be a number of Americans who don’t know what to do if they find a book they don’t like at the library. For them, we wrote this handy step-by-step guide. action.everylibrary.org/what_do_i_do...

These are exciting times for us here at Shef - a move towards a world free from unsustainable, inequitable Big Deals may just be possible after all

Libraries have a key opportunity in no-fee OA publishing to take an active role in supporting open knowledge production rather than their passive traditional role. They should seize it and steer open knowledge in line with their values.

I propose we switch from saying preprint / published paper to saying publish / reprint. "I published my paper on arxiv and I'm hoping to get it reprinted in Nature"

The peer review system is broken - a different approach is needed 💡 Kathryn Zeiler, @stephenpinfield.bsky.social and Ludo Waltman write about how increased transparency in the review process could speed scientific progress: theconversation.com/the-peer-rev...

"Instead of waiting for another 70 years for an OA transition to finally materialize, decision-makers should radically rethink their approach and divest their time and energy from such harmful [read and publish] deals" katinamagazine.org/content/arti... By Elena Simukovic

🚨 Preprint! We combine our recent open dataset of #APC prices with the article counts per journal-year from #OpenAlex to estimate how much the academic community has paid in APCs over the last 5 years. A. $8.349 billion ($8.968 B in 2023 USD) $2.5B in 2023 alone. arxiv.org/abs/2407.16551 #metasci