The Publishers Association and the Association of Learned, Professional and Society Publishers (ALPSP) have released a report titled ‘The potential effect of making journals free after a six month embargo.’ The report found that an across-the-board mandate might have a material effect on libraries’ subscriptions; and that the impact on publishers’ revenues would be considerable.
Higher Education Institutions’ libraries may be impacted by the collapse or scaling down of academic publishing houses. The world’s most distinguished research institutions would, the report suggests, be impacted the most, since published outputs are essential for the work carried out by their researchers. The reports’ results indicate that STM publishers could expect to retain full subscriptions from 56 percent of libraries, compared with 35 percent for AHSS publishers.
The report documents the results of a survey carried out to obtain a significant body of information on how the acquisitions policies of libraries might be affected by an across-the board mandate to make journals articles free of charge six months after publication. The report analyses the results of responses from 210 libraries across the world who were asked if the majority of content of research journals was freely available
within 6 months of publication, would they still continue to subscribe. Libraries were asked to send separate responses for Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) journals and Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences journals (AHSS).
