What We Tell Society Publishers About Open Access

My colleagues and I spend a great deal of time advising professional society publishers on their programs, and not infrequently open access (OA) comes up in the discussions. Sometimes this is because OA is the focus of a project, sometimes it is because OA is on the minds of the society’s leadership. What we find overall is that OA is little understood by society members, and often feared. (I have written about this before on the Kitchen.) We have found it useful to send along a briefing memo or to make a presentation to the governing board about OA, to take questions, and to quiet frazzled nerves. This is what we tell them...