open like a heartbroken teenager at a poetry reading
As I’m moving toward a place in my academic career where I’m thinking more about publishing my work, I’m drawn to thinking about some of the problems with academic publishing. In particular, I’m concerned about how limited access is to academic journals. danah boyd recently-ish posted about why she’s made the decision to post only in open-access journals.
I think that the promise of open-access publishing is great — particularly as we move more and more toward digital publication. Flow, the journal I’ve been most involved with, is open access to the max, and the model has thus far proven really successful. It’s also involved the volunteer labor of dozens of graduate students and a few faculty, but sometimes that’s what it takes. Most closed-access and print journals involve a lot of unpaid labor, and I know at least some of us over at Flow enjoy the whole mess. I certainly have over the past few years. That said, however, I think the shift is going to be difficult, if it’s possible at all. Many journals that are not open-access are very entrenched — many rightly so, having published often literally decades of significant scholarship. I think the most likely scenario is that there will be an increase in open-access journals, but that this increase will not necessarily unseat the place that traditional subscription-only journals have occupied.
And, finally, if you’re interested in open-access journals, the Directory of Open-Access Journals, which lists over 3,000 journals, is a good resource.