In “The Forbidden Forecast: Thinking About Open Access and Library Subscriptions,” Rick Anderson considers and advocates in favour for the potentially disruptive role of Green OA on subscriptions budgets. He argues that without cancelling subscriptions alongside moving to Green OA, library budgets will not recover. Anderson brings attention to the fact that more OA articles is not what is needed; rather, a transition from toll access to open access is the action that would have the largest impact. Although Anderson is persuasive in this argument, he does make some assumptions about OA at other points. For instance, he argues that “Green OA is absolutely dependent on the ongoing vitality of subscription journals” (n.p.) since it is these articles that are archived. In fact, articles from any sort of journal can be archived as Green OA; they do not necessarily need to originate in a subscription journal. Further, Anderson suggests that the “freemium” model does not work for OA, as once the material is free there is no impetus for consumers to access an “enhanced,” paid version. Although this may well be the case for journal articles, it doesn’t translate as readily to books, where many do indeed access the online, open access version in order to gauge whether or not the print book is worth buying. Regardless of these grey areas, Anderson’s point is well taken: open access will not “rescue” library budgets if the journal subscription status quo is maintained.

Work cited

Anderson, Rick. 2017. “The Forbidden Forecast: Thinking About Open Access and Library Subscriptions.” The Scholarly Kitchen. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/02/21/forbidden-forecast-thinking-open-access-library-subscriptions/