Page:Open access and the humanities - contexts, controversies and the future.pdf/57

 Sciences and the University of Texas at Austin, Department of Linguistics.93 In fact, as of April 2014, the ‘Societies and Open Access Research’ catalogue run by Caroline Sutton, Peter Suber and Amanda Page gives a list of 868 societies publishing 827 full-OA (i.e. not hybrid) journals.94 Likewise, several smaller US-based academic presses have embraced OA. Amherst, Michigan, National Academies, Australian National University and Penn State all have afﬁliated presses who have expressed support for open access. In the case of Amherst’s new enterprise, this is due to the belief that ‘when some presses. . . disseminate free literature, everybody (including those who run libraries) will enjoy access to that literature’.95 Likewise, Patrick Alexander of Penn State UP notes that ‘Penn State University Press is philosophically and practically in favor of open access.’96 Most interestingly, National Academies Press has provided free, full-text copies of its books online (open access) alongside priced print editions since 1994.97

This positive stance on OA is not one that is universally shared among these entities and related university presses. Although there has been a shift of opinion in favour since 2013,98 there have been objections from learned societies to the removal of both price and permission barriers.99 The most frequently reiterated argument made by learned societies is that they depend on journal subscription revenue to fund their other activities. Indeed, a recent survey of thirty-three learned societies, across all disciplines, concluded that ‘Learned societies overwhelmingly agree that Open Access will inevitably place some learned societies’ journals into ﬁnancial jeopardy.’100 This is clearly a recognised problem as Jisc (formerly the UK’s Joint Infrastructure and Services Council) commissioned research into the impact that a change to an open-access model would have upon learned societies’ business models. This report – which was commissioned in 2005 and is, therefore, somewhat out of sync with more recent developments – noted that while learned societies were interested in open-access models, at that point none of the publishers could see substantial cost advantages in the move to an OA publishing model and the majority highlighted the extra costs incurred in administering and collecting article processing charges.101 Although this report is now nine years old and suggested investigations of ‘pay for print’ and ‘freemium’ models that