The
tragic death of Aaron Swartz last month has brought attention to an issue that previously was only debated in the dim light of
specialized blogs - the concept of open access, and whether the public should have to pay to access knowledge.
Aaron Swartz committed suicide in January after being threatened with a lengthy prison sentence for downloading millions of pages of scholarly papers in a way that seemed to violate the terms of fair use. His act was a essentially a prank, a piece of civil disobedience intended to emphasize the disparity of access to information between privileged populations associated with a university and the vast majority of the world's population, who can't afford either university or the expensive subscriptions that make access to scholarly research possible.
His suicide was an individual act in response to a heavy-handed government prosecution and is in itself not directly related to how, as the managing editor of a small scholarly publication, I manage my budget. But the outcry against his suicide and the circumstances that led to it do threaten to encroach upon my bottom line, as popular articles challenge the academic community to "pledge to free every scholarly article from behind paywall archives" (
Slate) and admit that "scholars no longer [need] publishers to distribute their work." (
it is NOT junk)
It's enough to make a budget conscious managing editor a little nervous, and to wonder what will happen if university libraries do heed the call and decide to stop subscribing to scholarly journals that operate behind paywalls. Currently a little under half of our very modest budget comes from university subscriptions, for which we charge, like other journals, more than we charge for an individual subscription.
Most organized calls for Open Access recognize that organized peer review and distribution does come with a cost. However, the solution to the emerging problem - to put the cost of paying for publication onto the authors, instead of onto the readers - raises new questions of access. It also raises an even more troubling question: is scholarly publishing a service for readers - or a service for authors? Furthermore, are the traditional trappings of scholarly publishing - careful editing, standardized editing, and careful peer review - now obsolete?
Emily Wortman-Wunder is the managing editor of Minerals & Metallurgical Processing, Transactions, and the peer-reviewed papers in Mining Engineering, all published by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, Inc.