Back in April in the wake of University of California’s open access agreement with Elsevier, Ashley Jester, self-described political scientist/data scientist/librarian at Stanford University, wrote a piece expressing concern about the affect of transformative agreements on open access as a public good. In “Discomfort with Gold OA“, Jester describes open access scholarship as a public good that is available to everyone, without restricting anyone else’s access. It benefits the world.
Transformative agreements (TAs) shift payment for access by the reader (or the reader’s library) to the author (or the author’s institution) for publication. The reader can use scholarship freely, but the scholar cannot publish without cost. However, a scholarly communication ecosystem that provides true public goods imposes barriers for neither reader nor author/researcher. Transformative agreements are intended to be transitional, but each contract further solidifies a system that privileges those scholars who are members of institutions, or “clubs” that are party to these agreements. Restrictions, and diminished diversity and equity, are placed on the production of knowledge. Dave S. Ghamandi, in “‘Transformative Agreements’ & Library Publishing: a short examination,” further elaborates on how TAs reinforce an existing publishing oligopoly for the mutual benefit of the university’s prestige. The means of production are maintained, and they are not for the public good.
Jester lays out alternatives to funding scholarship through transformative agreements, namely governments and non-profits. The costs of scholarly communication are born by agencies whose missions are driven by collective benefit over that of selected individual(s). Universities and academic libraries should be alert to the risks of replacing one approach that restricts reader access with another that diminishes scholar participation.
