[Eril-l] [EXT] Re: APCs for paywalled articles?

[Crawford, Laurel]

Thanks, Scott.

My impression was that page charges were somewhat defensible if the publication was in print format: am I off-base? Doesn't the justification evaporate when we're thinking of online publications?

In any case, some of the fees I found are framed as page charges, while others are just a fee. If the fee is to support the publisher's services (editing, distribution, etc.) what are the library's subscription charges supporting? This still seems like double-charging to me, and it seems exploitative, since they know many researchers will scrape together the money, because the risk of remaining unpublished is too high.

Laurel Sammonds Crawford, MLIS
Head of Collection Development
University of North Texas Libraries
laurel.crawford at unt.edu<mailto:laurel.crawford at unt.edu>

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Pronouns<https://ied.unt.edu/pronouns>: she, her, and hers

From: T Scott Plutchak <splutchak at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2021 12:47 PM
To: Crawford, Laurel <Laurel.Crawford at unt.edu>
Cc: eril-l at lists.eril-l.org
Subject: [EXT] Re: [Eril-l] APCs for paywalled articles?

Page charges in society journals have a very long history, predating online journals.  I'm not defending current practices, just pointing out that requiring authors to partially subsidize publication has been going on for a very long time.  When commercial publishers started to move into the scientific publishing arena many decades ago, one of their inducements to authors was that they didn't have page charges.  They made up for it, of course, by having higher subscription fees.

Scott

T Scott Plutchak
Librarian
Epistemologist
Birmingham, Alabama
splutchak at gmail.com<mailto:splutchak at gmail.com>
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On Mar 15, 2021, at 12:04 PM, Crawford, Laurel <Laurel.Crawford at unt.edu<mailto:Laurel.Crawford at unt.edu>> wrote:

Hi everyone,

We're all familiar with APCs for OA articles. I have encountered a situation I haven't run into before: some journals are requiring authors to pay a fee to publish non-OA articles.

The examples we've found so far are all society journals in STEM fields. Some of them are published by one of the major publishers.

  *   Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fesajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fhub%2Fjournal%2F15409309%2Fresources%2Fauthor-guidelines-FEE&data=04%7C01%7CLaurel.Crawford%40unt.edu%7Cf306bb7d02b54abe417008d8e7da4808%7C70de199207c6480fa318a1afcba03983%7C0%7C0%7C637514271995841481%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=WGNh4vAW4vyX4XsZ2cRhr3tbYHSVk%2FjBOSxgdnXkHHA%3D&reserved=0>, Ecology Society of America
  *   All publications from ESA - see Table 3<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fesajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com%2Fdoi%2Ffull%2F10.1002%2Fbes2.1594&data=04%7C01%7CLaurel.Crawford%40unt.edu%7Cf306bb7d02b54abe417008d8e7da4808%7C70de199207c6480fa318a1afcba03983%7C0%7C0%7C637514271995851475%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=PMZdzH4bAwLDkD0jJZ6DHhBiebnbgvO5DeE0U1CiI0I%3D&reserved=0> of this article
  *   Plant Physiology<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpphys.msubmit.net%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmain.plex%3Fform_type%3Ddisplay_auth_instructions&data=04%7C01%7CLaurel.Crawford%40unt.edu%7Cf306bb7d02b54abe417008d8e7da4808%7C70de199207c6480fa318a1afcba03983%7C0%7C0%7C637514271995861468%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=2Cl1jGiWCZCE1Y4BzhpmwA6Nh2wMkhisi3fWPgQyGVo%3D&reserved=0>, American Society of Plant Biologists - see section, Fees and Charges.
  *   ASPB's journal, The Plant Cell<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftpc.msubmit.net%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmain.plex%3Fform_type%3Ddisplay_auth_instructions&data=04%7C01%7CLaurel.Crawford%40unt.edu%7Cf306bb7d02b54abe417008d8e7da4808%7C70de199207c6480fa318a1afcba03983%7C0%7C0%7C637514271995861468%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=6eZCxzpoZl7CGGa9603Mtu1fmtyNJpbEAwS7fOsiKLg%3D&reserved=0>, also has charges for non-open access. See Policies and Fees.
  *   AGU journals https://www.agu.org/Publish-with-AGU/Publish/Author-Resources/Publication-fees<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.agu.org%2FPublish-with-AGU%2FPublish%2FAuthor-Resources%2FPublication-fees&data=04%7C01%7CLaurel.Crawford%40unt.edu%7Cf306bb7d02b54abe417008d8e7da4808%7C70de199207c6480fa318a1afcba03983%7C0%7C0%7C637514271995871468%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=SYlU1XFKLnTqmiqHDyDuVmnYfc0cfbNcZ91STN2k7gY%3D&reserved=0>

What's bothering me about this is threefold:

  *   Our authors might be paying these fees and then the library might also be paying for a subscription.
  *   Large publisher conglomerates do not need "help making these subscriptions affordable" (as one of the above publishers claims). The library is already paying-collectively-a huge amount of money to provide access to these articles.
  *   Not all of them seem to be up-front about the fee structure. I spoke to at least one researcher who had passed through the acceptance and copy-edit stages before realizing a large fee was required for paywalled publication. We believe not disclosing that information on their website or submission guidelines is unethical according to the COPE guidelines on transparency<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublicationethics.org%2Fresources%2Fguidelines-new%2Fprinciples-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing&data=04%7C01%7CLaurel.Crawford%40unt.edu%7Cf306bb7d02b54abe417008d8e7da4808%7C70de199207c6480fa318a1afcba03983%7C0%7C0%7C637514271995871468%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=Ak3lggG3XgvsWxsyBf7ktJ76fKG8DcFo%2B94CqMGYAZs%3D&reserved=0>.

Have others encountered this situation? Have you addressed it with the publisher? I am curious about the rationale for this, faculty attitudes toward this type of fee, and what, if anything, you believe libraries can do to advocate for authors.

Thanks in advance!

Laurel Sammonds Crawford, MLIS
Head of Collection Development
University of North Texas Libraries
laurel.crawford at unt.edu<mailto:laurel.crawford at unt.edu>

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Pronouns<https://ied.unt.edu/pronouns>: she, her, and hers

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