Building Community: Supporting Minoritized Scholars through Library Publishing and Open and Equitable Revenue Models

Harrison W. Inefuku, Curtis Brundy, and Sharla Lair*

With the growth of open access (OA) journal publishing, a myriad of funding models has emerged to serve as an alternative to the traditional subscription model. Models that impose author facing charges are inequitable, favoring well-resourced authors and institutions, and continue the dominance of publications from the Global North. This exploratory study critically examines the current state of funding OA journal publishing and the disruptive role of library publishing programs. We conclude with a discussion of the potential of the LYRASIS Open Access Community Investment Program as a tool to support library publishing programs to sustainably fund inclusive OA journal publishing.

Introduction

Academic publishing has created a canon of research literature that largely centers white, male voices and perspectives. Through the subscription-based nature of traditional scholarly publishing, this occurs in part through a determination of what is salable—decisions made in a publishing profession that is overwhelmingly white and located in the Global North.1,2 In this environment, academic journals serve as gatekeepers that circumscribe what is considered valid and valuable science—decisions determined, in part, by whether the article’s topic will appeal to readers and subscribers who are also overwhelmingly white and located in the Global North.3 Raju and Badrudeen note that “the gatekeepers of the science (editors and reviewers) have a very situated interpretation of excellence in science. Furthermore, the determining factor for the rejection is profit, that is, acceptance of that which will sell to a Global North audience.”4 They point to the example of Kenyan horticulturalist Mary Abukutsa-Onyango, whose research on indigenous crops was rejected from major international journals because they considered the crops she researched as weeds, not because of the quality of research being presented.5 Frankland and Ray note that this gatekeeping function of journals can slow or prevent the publication of important research.6

The growth of open access publishing and the availability of open source publishing software has allowed for an increase in the number of publication venues. Combined with the disappearance of subscription-based revenue7 in open access publishing, open access has the potential to diversify the scholarly record. “When paper issues were the only available option, a wide enough subscriber base was a condition for sustainability of a journal. […] Open Access journals are not only unique because of their paperless operation, but because they offer new possibilities for niche- and emerging subject areas to establish dedicated research outlets.”8 However, without subscription revenues to rely on, publishers of open access journals must turn to alternative funding and labor models to support their operations.

Open access revenue models have been a topic of exploration and experimentation for many years.9 But it is just over the past few years that publishers—large and small, commercial and non-commercial—have greatly accelerated their adoption of these types of models and demonstrated a deeper commitment to transitioning away from the traditional paywalled subscription model.10 There are many reasons for this, including changing expectations of funders, the growth of open science, and the long-held desire by many to see the promise of open access finally become a reality.11

This article looks at revenue models for open access journal publishing in the United States. We open with a critical analysis of current funding models in use by libraries in the United States, arguing that author-facing open access fees harm authors who hold marginalized identities. We then move into a discussion of the potential and shortcomings of library publishing programs to serve as a site of disruption that eliminates author-facing open access publishing costs and diversifies the scholarly record. The Lyrasis Open Access Community Investment Program (OACIP) is then discussed as an example of a sponsorship-based open access funding model without author-facing fees that is available to library publishing programs.

By providing a critical examination of open access business models, highlighting library publishing as a potential site of disruption, and providing an example of a community-funded program, this article supports the research direction “Building business models to support scholarly communication” outlined in ACRL’s Open and Equitable Scholarly Communications: Creating a More Inclusive Future.12

Positionality Statements

The authors are all US born with degrees in higher education. Inefuku is an Asian American librarian of Chinese, Japanese, and Okinawan descent. Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and attending university and working on the continent, he draws on his experience as a member of both dominant and minoritized racial/ethnic groups to examine and address systemic racism in scholarly communication and academic publishing. Brundy is a white librarian who works to ensure students and faculty at their library, and readers around the world, have equitable access to a diverse array of scholarship. Lair is a white librarian who works closely with open access journal editorial boards and publishers to help them find sustainable funding for their journals. Our research is informed by our commitment to recognize and bring to the forefront the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in scholarly communication.

Open Access Funding Models

While the recent surge of interest and adoption13 in open access business models by scholarly publishers has led to excitement and innovation,14 there is growing concern that the models being implemented are perpetuating and reinforcing inequities in scholarly publishing.15 Open access revenue models continue the marginalization of minoritized scholars when publishers erect financial barriers to publishing. If publishers explain their decisions to impose financial barriers, they often justify it based on the business case. For example, when Springer Nature announced the launch of an $11,250 article processing charge (APC) for Nature in 2020, the premium price tag was justified by the journal’s high cost of production, including hundreds of staff members and “…almost 200 editors with doctorates.”16 But within a global publishing system steeped in historical and ongoing oppression, racism, and colonialism,17 it is hard not to conclude that more troubling undercurrents are also at work. This requires a critical examination of open access business models enacted by business-minded publishers, especially those models that shut voices out of scholarly publishing. It isn’t difficult to discern inequities in these models through anti-oppressive and anti-racist lenses.

Drawing from Kendi’s definition of racist policies, in which “a racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups,”18 oppressive open access funding models produce or sustain inequity between dominant and marginalized groups, and racist models uphold inequities between racial groups. While oppression “is not a static concept but a dynamic, multidimensional, and relational one,” it can be motivated by a dominant group achieving and maintaining preferential access and treatment.19 Anti-oppressive and anti-racist funding models, therefore, work to dismantle inequities between dominant and marginalized groups. They need to advance equity by inviting and facilitating broad participation, elevating voices, and reducing power inequities. We apply this framing to our examination of open access funding models currently being employed by scholarly publishers and academic libraries in the United States.

The open access business model landscape can be confusing to navigate as new models emerge and existing models evolve. Unfortunately, there is a lack of consensus around definitions for common terms. For example, definitions of transformative agreements (TA) vary based on geographic context and purpose. Wise and Estelle’s 2019 identification of at least seven TA models operating in the market included both APC-based and non-APC based models.20 This grouping is consistent with the ESAC Initiative’s definition of a TA being an agreement between a publisher and institution “in which former subscription expenditures are repurposed to support open access publishing.”21 By this definition, any agreement that shifts library subscription spending toward support for open access is transformative. And yet, the more common understanding (or misunderstanding) of TAs in the United States, and among some publishers, more narrowly focuses on APC-based TAs.22 The lack of clarity around what constitutes a TA renders the term inadequate for discussing critical aspects of open access agreements, such as equity.

Because of the confusion around the meaning of TAs, our consideration of open access agreements focuses on whether the underlying model is APC-based, rather than the labels applied to them. Article level charges like APCs discriminate between those with funding—whether from institutional, funder, or personal sources—and those without. Open access funding models that are based on APCs include the pay-to-publish approach of native-open access publishers like Frontiers23 and MDPI24 as well as the hybrid open access model offered by traditional subscription publishers, in which authors who publish in a subscription journal pay an APC to make their article open access. APC-based models also include the many varieties of Read and Publish models used by publishers such as Cambridge University Press,25 Wiley Blackwell,26 Institution of Physics,27 and many others that offer institutional level open access agreements.

Authors who are fortunate to be covered by such agreements will have their APCs paid by their institution. Authors outside of an agreement who want to publish open access are asked to pay the APC themselves. Faculty of color are disproportionately affected by this approach. Bernal and Villapando point out that faculty of color are segregated across institutions, ranks, and departments.28 Not only are they more likely to be found at institutions with less resources and prestige, but faculty of color are more likely to hold lower prestige positions such as lecturer or instructor and to serve within lower resourced disciplines within the humanities and area studies that are often considered less prestigious. This means faculty of color are less likely to be covered by an open access agreement, since these agreements are more often made between publishers and larger, better resourced institutions.

Also, faculty of color, because of position or discipline, face greater financial challenges when asked to pay APCs on their own. In addition to their institutional affiliations and disciplines, faculty of color are less likely to receive grant funding for their research—another source often tapped to pay APCs.29 A 2020 AAUP study found gender pay gaps and inferred racial pay gaps for underrepresented minority faculty, meaning they may have fewer personal resources to finance open access publishing.30 The challenges in finding funding to pay APCs compounds the difficulties scholars in the Global South face in publishing their research, as scholars in lower income countries may be more likely to pay APCs from personal funds. A 2017 survey of Kenyan researchers found that 62 percent paid APCs out of pocket, with few having APCs funded by grants or universities (9% and 11%, respectively).31 Within more privileged institutions, APCs also drive inequity, so that late career, male, and STEM authors are more likely to publish OA in APC journals.32

APC-based revenue open access models do not advance racial equity, elevate marginalized voices, or reduce power inequities. By inserting a financial barrier between the author and their ability to publish open access, APC-based models ensure that research and voices from wealthier, more privileged institutions and countries have greater influence, broader representation, and greater visibility.33 From an anti-racist and anti-oppressive perspective, APC-based approaches manage to move scholarly publishing exactly in the wrong direction. Racial inequities are advanced, underrepresented voices are further marginalized, and power inequities grow.

Waiver and discount programs have long been used to offset and mitigate the harm caused by APCs. But there is ample evidence that waiver and discount programs are poorly conceived, poorly implemented, and inadequately funded.34 Waivers and discounts do not apply to all authors who need them. When considering the availability of waivers and discounts to authors from the Global South, Asai points out that “publishers frequently discount APCs for articles written by authors in lower-middle-income countries, [but] the discount is not universal, and authors in upper-middle-income countries do not receive a discount.”35 Consideration for extending discounts and waivers is most often determined by the country of the corresponding author, excluding authors in wealthier countries working in under-resourced institutions. Hybrid journals, meanwhile, are not typically included in waivers and discounts programs, leaving authors without resources to pay an APC little choice but to publish their work behind a paywall. This is especially problematic since hybrid journals are often more established and may be considered more prestigious and carry greater weight in promotion and tenure decisions by authors’ institutions. The author experience in trying to attain a waiver or discount can range from confusing to demeaning, with unclear requirements and processes that can change without notice. Publisher profit or surplus, the bottom-line, seems to come first in the design of these programs, leaving author dignity and equity in a distant second. While there is some room for improvement in waiver and discount programs, they should be understood as a Band-Aid on a broken bone. Waivers and discounts cannot fix the inherent inequities in APC-based open access approaches.

Open access revenue models that do not rely on article level charges for revenue generation are the alternative to APC-based approaches. Non-APC based models include Subscribe to Open, a conditional model developed by Annual Reviews that is now being used by sixteen other publishers and will make 159 journals open access in 2023;36 Open Library of the Humanities, a subsidy model with over 300 libraries that pay a modest annual fee to make twenty-eight journals fully open;37 and SciELO, the long running, massive cooperative model that started in Brazil and now includes sixteen countries and well over 1,200 journals.38 These and other non-APC based models eliminate financial barriers for minoritized scholars seeking to publish open access, helping to reduce racial and power inequities and promote the inclusion of marginalized voices.39 Equity in non-APC based models is achieved on the front-end, as a fundamental aspect of the design.

While non-APC based open access models clearly provide greater author equity, they are not seeing the same levels of adoption as APC-based models like Read and Publish. This is of growing concern to libraries, some of which have started taking more direct action to create a more values- aligned scholarly publishing landscape. Next, we examine the critical role of library publishing in creating an inclusive environment that provides a space for scholars who hold marginalized identities.

Library Publishing

An increasing number of libraries are offering journal publishing services as an alternative to traditional publishers. An outgrowth of library engagement with scholarly communication, library publishing is defined by the Library Publishing Coalition as “the set of activities led by academic and research libraries and library consortia to support the creation, dissemination, and curation of scholarly, creative, and/or educational works.”40 In contrast to traditional publishers, particularly the large commercial publishers, library publishers have been noted for being mission- and value-driven41 rather than profit- or even cost recovery-driven.

In alignment with the values of their host libraries, materials published by library publishers are overwhelmingly open access. Hahn notes that “subsidizing locally managed open access publishing is an alternative to subsidizing subscription models with inherent access restrictions.”42 Of the ninety-nine library publishing programs listed in the 2022 Library Publishing Directory, only four reported publishing journals requiring a paid subscription or purchase, and six reported publishing journals under a hybrid model (with both paid and open access content).43

Because library publishing programs are largely free of market constraints, Inefuku and Roh articulate their disruptive potential to diversify the scholarly record by publishing materials by scholars of color and/or about communities of color.44 This potential is echoed in the Library Publishing Coalition’s Ethical Framework for Library Publishing, which states that “as a developing sector of publishing, library publishers have the ability to intervene and reduce the impact of bias in content selection and create hospitable environments for a diversity of identities, viewpoints, and approaches.”45

However, because library publishing programs do not have the same revenue streams as traditional publishers, journals published through library publishing programs typically offer lower levels of production support, with funding generally provided by the host library.46 One method of reducing costs is to offer a limited set of services compared to larger or more established publishers. Services lacking in library publishing programs often include copyediting, typesetting, publication management, and marketing47—tasks that are usually pushed onto editors, authors, or other volunteers.

By not providing these services, library publishers are not optimally positioned to support the needs of scholars of color. When publishers are unable to provide services like professional copyediting, typesetting, or journal management services, the mechanical work of publishing journals often falls on authors or editors, requiring them to expend labor on more technical aspects of publishing. This labor can be compounded for scholars who hold marginalized identities or are already overburdened by institutional and professional service responsibilities. Vuong notes that the work involved in editing a journal can often come at the cost of one’s own scholarly output.48 The additional (largely uncompensated) labor required of editors of journals published by libraries is compounded for editors of color, who often face cultural taxation in their day-to-day work, spending more time on activities devalued in promotion and tenure, such as teaching, service, and advising. A study at the University of Oregon found that “non-marginalized faculty spent a disproportionate amount of their awake time on activities that count toward tenure and promotion, while marginalized faculty spent more time on ‘invisible work.’”49

This cultural taxation also exists in journal publishing, as scholars who hold marginalized identities establish journals as sites of community building, challenging dominant publishing structures and mentoring emerging scholars. The importance of this work is captured in Powell’s reflection of their experience editing Studies in American Indian Literature: “One part of that work was to cultivate and mentor Native and Indigenous scholars who’d consistently been trained to believe the academy wouldn’t allow them to write or theorize from their own experiences as Native/Indigenous people and, instead, expected them to ‘support’ their own knowledge with that of non-Native scholars.”50 While community building and mentoring emerging scholars may certainly be important for any editor, editors who hold marginalized identities may also shoulder the role of excavating stories and undoing harms caused by systemic racism in publishing.

In addition to increased labor for journal editors and authors, shifting work away from professional copy editors and typesetters can result in publications that fail to meet signifiers of journal quality (that have been established in whiteness). Schlosser notes that “the bootstrapped nature of many library publishing programs—accomplishing a lot with little support or formal training—also contributes to [a lack of attention to standards and best practices].”51 Martin Paul Eve writes, “Specialised labour practices that require renumeration underlie even something so seemingly obsolete as typesetting in scholarly communication. Wishing this away or subsuming it under the rubric of volunteerism does not bode well for the long-term availability and archiving of scholarship, even if it tempts our imaginations when fed by technological abundance thinking.”52 This can have direct and real impact for scholars who hold marginalized identities. In 2020, Dr. Paul Harris, an assistant professor of education at the University of Virginia, was denied tenure. The promotion and tenure committee that reviewed the case, which contained no faculty of color, felt that the Journal of African American Males in Education “appeared to be self-published,” despite the journal’s low acceptance rate.53 While Harris was eventually granted tenure following an appeal and petition, this case demonstrates how facets of publishing beyond published content, such as visual appearance, can be used to devalue or dismiss the contributions of scholars of color.54

Ghamandi identifies library publishing as “a social and economic justice project. It is also an emancipatory project to free ourselves from the cruelty of neoliberalism.”55 Library publishing programs can certainly provide a space for scholars who hold marginalized identities to publish their research, but they must consider providing a fuller suite of services in order to maximize benefit for these scholars. This requires resources that library publishing programs do not have.

Library publishing programs, however, are loathe to replicate the subscription and APC-based revenue models used by traditional publishers. McCready and Molls write, “It is questionable if it is in the best interest of scholarly communications to attempt to continue supporting, or adopting, the business models used by commercial publishers. [… library publishers] need a wholly new business model that holds them accountable to high quality standards, and fulfills their mission, while also being fiscally responsible agents of the dollars entrusted to them.”56 Without expanding resources allocated to library publishing programs, they will be unable to provide a significant and impactful alternative to traditional publishers. It is unlikely, in an age of stagnant or shrinking library budgets, that additional funding will be allocated to grow library publishing programs. Since current funding for many library publishing programs comes from host libraries’ existing budgets, any growth in resources will have to come at the expense of other services, programs, and collections. OACIP provides an opportunity for library publishing programs to seek funding that allows them to publish journals by and about marginalized communities, allowing editors and authors to focus on the intellectual labor of publishing, and receive compensation for their work.

The Lyrasis Open Access Community Investment Program

OACIP launched in 2020 to provide a community-driven framework that enables multiple stakeholders to evaluate and collectively fund open access journals without author-facing fees.57 The formation of OACIP came about in response to challenges being voiced by both libraries and publishers as they were attempting to transition their respective practices in support of open access publishing.

Libraries were seeking “to move the entire scholarly communications landscape closer to the scholar-led, open, and equitable environment that promises to enhance opportunities for collaboration and speed the accumulation of knowledge and insight.”58 To accomplish this, libraries and librarians drafted checklists, developed principles, and sought open access programs and initiatives that strengthened diversity, equity and inclusion in scholarship, in line with these checklists and principles.59 As articulated above, APC-driven revenue models fall short from being inclusive, equitable, or from facilitating diversity. Although the few community-driven, non-APC programs that have emerged in recent years, like Open Library of Humanities, were proving to be more inclusive, equitable and diverse;60 libraries were seeking more non-APC-based programs to support. Although many libraries were seeking community-driven approaches to acquisitions that were more aligned to their principles, they were confronted with challenges in finding trusted publishers and programs in which to sustainably invest, as well as struggling to overcome the administrative hurdles in acquiring open access content at their institutions.61

Simultaneously, many publishers were expressing a desire to transition to open access but were struggling to find sustainable funding to support their transition. Smaller publishers, such as library publishers, lack the resources and scale of the largest publishers to administer their own open access programs.62 Consortia, and specifically those with the capacity to act nationally—not just at the local, state or regional level—were being called out by many in the scholarly communications ecosystem to take on the role of building an infrastructure to support funding of open access content.63

In a search for solutions, Lyrasis partnered with Transitioning Society Publications to Open Access (TSPOA),64 a group comprising members from libraries, library publishers, and societies. TSPOA members provided consultations with smaller, non-profit publishers to explore strategies for sustainably transitioning journals to open access. It became evident through these discussions that there was an opportunity to build a community-driven, sustainable funding infrastructure to support principled, equitable open access without author-facing fees.

OACIP makes it easy for libraries to invest in equitable open access by providing useful and essential information about the publications and publishers taking part in the program. Libraries do not typically have access to this level of information for the open access investments they must consider. While it can be difficult to find information about publisher efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusivity, it is especially difficult to find this information at the journal level.

To provide libraries with the information needed to make informed open investment decisions, OACIP requires publishers to complete a criteria form for each participating journal. The OACIP criteria benefits both publishers and libraries. For publishers, the criteria provide an opportunity to tell their stories in their own voice in a place that libraries will see. It also creates opportunities for publishers to engage in a dialogue with libraries to learn about what criteria are relevant, and to reflect on what markers are important. Publishers that fall short in certain areas can potentially address their deficiencies through meaningful change to their organization, such as through a demonstrated commitment to diversity. The criteria also can drive change for library investors and normalize the development of local principles, including those around diversity, equity, and inclusion. While only a few libraries and consortia have established benchmarks for evaluating open access investments, that list is growing.65

The criteria form adopted by OACIP was developed by the University of California Scholarly Transformation Advice and Review (STAR) Team.66 Among the questions included in OACIP’s criteria form are those about the journal and publisher’s missions; their diversity, equity, and inclusion impact; and their commitment to advancing social justice and diversity.67

For the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, a OACIP participating journal, transitioning to open access has importance for their land-grant mission (with the journal based out of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center) and for its commitment to Indigenous communities. In describing the journal’s reasons for transitioning to open access, the criteria response reads:

As a publicly funded institution and as a land-grant institution, we should certainly not charge the peoples whose lands the universities reside upon for this research: California American Indians and other Indigenous Peoples. Pragmatically, providing open access means that hundreds, perhaps thousands, more readers will have access to that content both domestically and internationally. It can reach small island nations and Indigenous scholars throughout the world.68

The criteria form provides journals with an opportunity to articulate whether and how they disrupt traditional norms and power structures to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic publishing.

Using the publishers’ responses, libraries can make more informed decisions based on local values and checklist alignment. And if they have not articulated their own local values yet, the form presents an opportunity for them to do so.

Through OACIP, Lyrasis is building administrative and financial capacity to support diamond open access journals sustainably and without author-facing fees. The recent OA Diamond Study, commissioned by cOAlition S, found that the diamond open access economy relies heavily on volunteer labor—60 percent of journals depend on volunteer labor, and 86 percent of those journals report a medium or high reliance on volunteers. The majority of journals operate with minimal staff support, and 53 percent of journals run on fewer than one FTE for their operations. A wide range of mechanisms fund operations and development costs, including in-kind support, grants, collectively organized funding, donations, shared infrastructure, membership, funding proportional to the articles published, freemium services, and Subscribe to Open.69

To combat the financial precarity of diamond open access journals, OACIP provides services for the journals, such as support in building pricing and revenue models and providing outreach to prospective funders. As many library publishing programs do not have the resources to provide journals with a full suite of publishing services, many do not know how to seek funding from other libraries and organizations, nor do they have the capacity to build a funding network large enough to support them. Also, library publishing programs and journal editorial boards do not always have the resources nor the expertise to create a business model to support their journals. Therefore, they have little idea of how to determine what to charge libraries within market expectations. OACIP works with a journal to determine its revenue needs, ensuring that it is asking for sufficient funds to cover costs for copyediting, honoraria for editorial boards, and any additional publishing costs. By helping secure funding that can cover outsourced production and copyediting, OACIP allows publishers and editorial boards to focus more of their efforts on the intellectual labor of journal publishing.

OACIP funding can help journals reduce their reliance on uncompensated labor. It also allows editorial boards to not only focus on the intellectual work of publishing a journal, but also to focus their energies on community-building and mentorship. These activities are central to liquid blackness, which is currently seeking funding through OACIP. As stated in their criteria response:

Often alluding to the jazz ensemble as aspirational structure, the liquid blackness research group experiments with forms of sociality through an emphasis on collaborative and yet non-proprietary attachments to the group. This is a strategy of community building and a tool to build “heritage knowledge” by exposing researchers to the underrepresented archives of black expressive culture. The research group and the journal aim to establish tools and a space that allows the next generation of scholars and creatives to write themselves into the same radical history.70

In addition to allowing editors to focus on community-building aspects of their journal, compensating editors can allow publishers to decrease the burden of cultural taxation, in which faculty of color are expected to advance institutional diversity efforts without the work being recognized or rewarded.71

Collaboratively funded open access initiatives or programs like OACIP can be efficiently administered through an organization that enables small-scale transactions between open access investors and publishers. Library consortia like Lyrasis are well-versed in providing services like this. Having one place to find open access investment opportunities, as well as consistent types of information about those opportunities, streamlines the work of libraries and helps prevent investment fatigue.

To ensure easy access to information, OACIP provides a web page for each journal that includes a brief description of the journal, a link to its OACIP Criteria Form, the funding goal and funding to date, and recommended library pledge amounts. The web page also shows who has pledged support.

OACIP has chosen to only partner with institution-led publishers such as library publishers, university presses, and society-/association-led publishers, as well as independent, scholar-led publishers as they are community-led publishers whose respective missions align with the scholars they serve. This approach will help amplify diverse voices and reduce power inequities, facilitating the participation of those often marginalized in scholarly publishing. Community-led publishers often have the highest need for finding new, sustainable revenue streams, as they are positioned on the margins of the scholarly communication economy. Included among the eleven journals funded through the first three rounds of OACIP are journals published by library publishing programs (Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, published by the Iowa State University Digital Press), two journals by and about communities of color (American Indian Culture and Research Journal, which is transitioning to open access publishing through California Digital Library’s eScholarship Publishing, and liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies, published by Duke University Press), and a journal published in the Global South (Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, published by the E.L.A. Project based in India).

OACIP is helping advance a radical transformation in scholarly communication by making it easier to invest in values-aligned scholarly publishing. If libraries are seeking pathways to openness, anti-racism, and anti-oppression, then attention and funding must be directed toward publishers and organizations that are seeking the same.

Conclusion

Now that the open transition is well underway, a consensus has emerged among many scholarly publishing stakeholders: values, such as equity, should guide and direct our work. Library publishing programs can provide a diverse and inclusive space for scholars who hold marginalized identities. Through OACIP, library- and community-led publishers can connect with values-aligned libraries seeking to invest in equitable open access. This funding can provide financial stability and the ability to compensate scholars, and increase and improve production support, allowing scholars to better focus on the intellectual labor of publishing.

Libraries and library organizations commonly espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion as core values. Many issued anti-racism statements in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020. But if change is going to take place, it is going to take action. Statements, while necessary, are not sufficient to effect change. By publishing scholarship by and about marginalized communities through their library publishing programs and supporting their publishing through collective funding programs like OACIP, libraries can take meaningful action in alignment with their values and the commitments they have made through their anti-racism statements.

Notes

1. Albert N. Greco, Robert M. Wharton, and Amy Brand, “Demographics of Scholarly Publishing and Communication Professionals,” Learned Publishing 29, no. 2 (2016): 73–140, https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1017.

2. We use the imperfect terms Global North and Global South in this article, not as a proxy of income status of countries, but to demarcate colonizing countries, which were largely located in the northern hemisphere, from postcolonial and colonized countries, as well as to identify the Global South as a “space of resistance against neoliberal capitalism,” as outlined in Sebastian Haug, “What or Where Is the ‘Global South’? A Social Science Perspective,” LSE Impact Blog (blog), The London School of Economics and Political Science, September 28, 2021, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/09/28/what-or-where-is-the-global-south-a-social-science-perspective/.

3. Harrison W. Inefuku and Charlotte Roh, “Agents of Diversity and Social Justice: Librarians and Scholarly Communication,” in Open Access and the Future of Scholarly Communication: Policy and Infrastructure, ed. Kevin L. Smith and Katherine A. Dickson, 107–27 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).

4. Reggie Raju and Auliya Badrudeen, “Social Justice Driving Open Access Publishing: An African Perspective,” Journal of Electronic Publishing 25, no. 1 (2022): 51–59, https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.1910.

5. Electronic Information for Libraries, “Opening Up East African Research to the World: Seven Years of EIFL’s Work in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda,” in Knowledge without Boundaries: EIFL 2017 Annual Report, 8–10 (Vilnius, Lithuania: EIFL, 2017), https://www.eifl.net/download/file/fid/7770.

6. Julia Frankland and Margaret A. Ray, “Traditional versus Open Access Scholarly Journal Publishing: An Economic Perspective,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 49, no. 1 (October 2017): 5–25. https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp.49.1.5.

7. Subscription-based revenue here refers to the traditional, pay-walled subscription business model, not newer open access business models like Subscribe to Open.

8. Mikael Laakso, Helena Bukvova, Linus Nyman, Bo-Christer Björk, and Turid Hedlund, “The Development of Open Access Journal Publishing from 1993 to 2009,” PLoS ONE 6, no. 6 (2011): e20961, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020961.

9. See for example, Raym Crows model work on behalf of SPARC: Raym Crow, “Income Models for Open Access: An Overview of Current Practice,” (Washington: SPARC, 2009), https://www.academia.edu/es/2254573/Income_models_for_open_access_An_overview_of_current_practice; Raym Crow, “Publishing Cooperatives: An Alternative for Non-Profit Publishers,” First Monday 11, no. 9 (2006), https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v11i9.1396

10. The ESAC Initiative Registry shows the dramatic growth in open access agreements by country, institution, and publisher. “ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry,” accessed January 24, 2023, https://esac-initiative.org/about/transformative-agreements/agreement-registry/

11. The most enduring of such promises remains that of the 2001 Budapest Open Access Initiative Declaration, which begins, “An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good.” “Read the Declaration,” accessed January 24, 2023, https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read/

12. Nancy Maron, Rebecca Kennison, Paul Bracke, Nathan Hall, Isaac Gilman, Kara Malenfant, Charlotte Roh, and Yasmeen Shorish, Open and Equitable Scholarly Communications: Creating a More Inclusive Future (Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2019), https://doi.org/10.5860/acrl.1.

13. “Market Watch,” last updated April 4, 2023, accessed May 29, 2023, https://esac-initiative.org/market-watch/.

14. Sharla Lair and Curtis Brundy, “The Open Transition Takes Center Stage,” Commonplace 1, no. 3 (2021): https://doi.org/10.21428/6ffd8432.3e4dfdae

15. Andre Brasil and Thed van Leeuwen, “The Unseen Costs of Article Processing Charges: The Different Realities of Brazil and the Netherlands,” in 26th International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators, edited by Nicolas Robinson-Garcia, Daniel Torres-Salinas, and Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado (Geneva: Zenodo, 2022): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6966707; Sara Rouhi, Romy Beard, and Curtis Brundy, “Left in the Cold: The Failure of APC Waiver Programs to Provide Author Equity,” Science Editor 45, no. 1 (2022): 5–13, https://doi.org/10.36591/SE-D-4501-5.

16. Rick Seltzer, “Open Access Comes to a Selective Journal,” INSIDE Higher Ed, November 24, 2020, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/11/24/nature-add-open-access-publishing-option-2021

17. See, for example, Inefuku’s use of critical race theory to highlight the ways racism is ordinary and pervasive in scholarly communication. Harrison W. Inefuku, “Relegated to the Margins: Faculty of Color, the Scholarly Record, and the Necessity of Antiracist Library Disruptions,” in Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory, edited by Sofia Y. Leung and Jorge R. Lopez-McKnight, 197–216 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2021), https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11969.003.0014.

18. Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (New York: One World, 2019), 18.

19. Bob Mullaly, Challenging Oppression and Confronting Privilege, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 39–41.

20. Alicia Wise and Lorraine Estelle, Society Publishers Accelerating Open Access and Plan S (SPA-OPS) Project (London: Wellcome Trust, 2020), https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4561397.v3

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22. Ashley Farley, Allison Langham-Putrow, Elisabeth Shook, Leila Belle Sterman, and Megan Wacha, “Transformative Agreements: Six Myths, Busted,” College & Research Libraries News 82, no. 7 (2021): 298-301, https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.82.7.298 ; IOP Science, “Frequently Asked Questions for Transformative Agreements,” accessed January 24, 2023, https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/publishing-support/authors/open-access/transformative-agreements-hub/frequently-asked-questions-transformative-agreements/

23. Frontiers Media S.A., “Fee Policy,” accessed January 24, 2023, https://www.frontiersin.org/about/fee-policy

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28. Dolores Delgado Bernal and Octavio Villalpando, “An Apartheid of Knowledge in Academia: The Struggle over the ‘Legitimate’ Knowledge of Faculty of Color,” Equity & Excellence in Education 35, no. 2 (May 1, 2002): 169–80, https://doi.org/10.1080/713845282.

29. For example, studies have found that Black and Asian researchers were less likely to receive NIH research grants. See Donna K. Ginther, Walter T. Schaffer, Joshua Schnell, Beth Masimore, Faye Liu, Laurel L. Haak, and Rayard Kington, “Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards,” Science 333, no. 6045 (August 19, 2011): 1015–19, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1196783; Sam S. Oh, Joshua Galanter, Neeta Thakur, Maria Pino-Yanes, Nicolas E. Barcelo, Marquitta J. White, Danielle M. de Bruin, Ruth M. Greenblatt, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Alan H. B. Wu, Lauisa N. Borrell, Chris Gunter, Neil R. Power, and Esteban G. Burchard, “Diversity in Clinical and Biomedical Research: A Promise Yet to Be Fulfilled,” PLoS Medicine 12, no. 12 (2015): e1001918, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001918; Travis A. Hoppe, Aviv Litovitz, Kristine A. Willis, Rebecca A. Meseroll, Matthew J. Perkins, B. Ian Hutchins, Alison F. Davis, Michael S. Lauer, Hannah A. Valantine, James M. Anderson, and George M. Santangelo, “Topic Choice Contributes to Lower Rate of NIH Awards to African-American/Black Scientists,” Science Advances 5, no. 10 (October 9, 2019): eaaw7238, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw7238.

30. Glenn Colby and Chelsea Fowler, “Data Snapshot: IPEDS Data on Full-Time Women Faculty and Faculty of Color” (Washington, DC: AAUP, 2020): https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/Dec-2020_Data_Snapshot_Women_and_Faculty_of_Color.pdf.

31. Wanyenda Chilimo, Aggrey Adem, Ajwang’ Nicholas Walter Otieno, and Mary Maina, “Adoption of Open Access by Academic Researchers in Kenya,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 49, no. 1 (October 2017): 103–22, https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp.49.1.103.

32. Anthony J. Olejniczak and Molly J. Wilson, “Who’s Writing Open Access (OA) Articles? Characteristics of OA Authors at Ph.D.-Granting Institutions in the United States,” Quantitative Science Studies 1 no. 4 (2020): 1429–50, https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00091.

33. Audrey C. Smith, Leandra Merz, Jesse B. Borden, Chris K. Gulick, Akhil R. Kshirsagar, and Emilio M. Bruna, “Assessing the Effect of Article Processing Charges on the Geographic Diversity of Authors Using Elsevier’s ‘Mirror Journal’ System,” Quantitative Science Studies 2 no. 4 (2021): 1123–43, https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00157; Reggie Raju, “From Green to Gold to Diamond: Open Access’s Return to Social Justice” (paper, IFLA WLIC Transform Libraries Transform Societies, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 26, 2018), https://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2220/; Tony Ross-Hellauer, “Open Science, Done Wrong, Will Compound Inequities,” Nature 603, no. 7901 (2022): 363, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00724-0.

34. Sara Rouhi, Romy Beard, and Curtis Brundy, “Left in the Cold: The Failure of APC Waiver Programs to Provide Author Equity,” Science Editor 45 (2022): 5–13, https://doi.org/10.36591/SE-D-4501-5; Jon Harle and Verity Warne, Open Access: Challenges and Opportunities for Low- and Middle-Income Countries and the Potential Impact of UK policy, (London: UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, 2020), https://www.gov.uk/research-for-development-outputs/open-access-challenges-and-opportunities-for-low-and-middle-income-countries-and-the-potential-impact-of-uk-policy; Emily Cox, “Research Outputs as Testimony & the APC as Testimonial Injustice in the Global South,” College & Research Libraries 84, no. 4 (2023): 513–30, https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.4.513.

35. Sumiko Asai, “Author Choice of Journal Type Based on Income Level of Country,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 53, no. 1 (October 2021): 24–34, https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp.53.1.03.

36. For a description of the model, see Raym Crow, Richard Gallagher, and Kamran Naim, “Subscribe to Open: A Practical Approach for Converting Subscription Journals to Open Access,” Learned Publishing 33 no. 2 (2020): 181–85. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1262. For a list of S2O publishers and journals, see John Willinsky, “Publishers Employing Subscribe-to-Open with Journal Counts,” last updated April 12, 2023, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Me7X0HtV4n4Q-KWIu7HxORMGg8aWfC6mSGo8hRvlF5k/edit?usp=sharing

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38. Peter Schulz, “SciELO 20 Years: From Visionary to Indispensable,” SciELO in Perspective (blog), SciELO, October 10, 2018, https://blog.scielo.org/en/2018/10/10/scielo-20-years-from-visionary-to-indispensable-originally-published-in-jornal-da-unicamp-in-october-2018/#.Y8w8zOLMKJ4.

39. While non-APC models eliminate financial barriers to publishing for minoritized scholars, other barriers to publishing persist.

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41. See, for example, Raym Crow, October Ivins, Allyson Mower, Daureen Nesdill, Mark Newton, Julie Speer, and Charles Watkinson, Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success (Washington, DC: SPARC, 2012), https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purduepress_ebooks/24/; Sarah Blenko, “Value-Driven Library Publishing Services at Research-Oriented Universities and Small Academic Libraries,” The IJournal: Student Journal of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information 3, no. 2 (2018), https://theijournal.ca/index.php/ijournal/article/view/29477; and Jenny Hoops and Sarah Hare, “Library Publisher Resources: Making Publishing Approachable, Sustainable, and Values-driven,” College & Research Libraries News 80, no. 2 (2019): 74–7, https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.80.2.74.

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49. Social Sciences Feminist Network Research Interest Group, “The Burden of Invisible Work in Academia: Social Inequalities and Time Use in Five University Departments,” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 39 (2017): 240, https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hjsr/vol1/iss39/21/.

50. Melea Powell, “Making Space for Diverse Knowledges: Building Cultural Rhetorics Editorial Practices,” in Behind the Curtain of Scholarly Publishing: Editors in Writing, edited by Greg Giberson, Megan Schoen, and Christian R. Weisser, 202–12 (Louisville, CO: Utah State University Press, 2022): 204–5.

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52. Martin Paul Eve, “Open Publication, Digital Abundance, and Scarce Labour,” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 49, no. 1 (October 2017): 36, https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp.49.1.26.

53. Taylor Harris, “Whiteness Can’t Save Us,” Catapult, (June 10, 2020), https://catapult.co/stories/taylor-harris-on-police-violence-racism-church-parenting-black-kids; Megan Zahneis, “This Professor Was Denied Tenure: Was Race a Factor?” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 30, 2020, https://www.chronicle.com/article/this-professor-was-denied-tenure-was-race-a-factor; Tenure for Dr. Paul C. Harris, accessed May 29, 2023, https://sites.google.com/view/tenureforpaulharris/home.

54. For discussions of the importance of a journal’s visual appearance on its perceived quality, see Jessica Barnes and Amy Papaelias, “Readable, Serious, Traditional: Investigating Scholarly Perceptions of the Visual Design and Reading Experiences of Academic Journals,” She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation 7, no. 4 (Winter 2021): 540–64, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2021.10.005; Lars Ole Schwen, “Ten Simple Rules for Typographically Appealing Scientific Texts,” PLoS Computational Biology 16, no. 12 (2020): e1008458, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008458; and Masoud Negahdary, “Identifying Scientific High Quality Journals and Publishers,” Publishing Research Quarterly 33 (2017): 456–70, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-017-9541-4.

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59. In addition to the MIT Framework, examples of frameworks include Rachel Caldwell and Robin Sinn, “What’s Your Tier? Introducing Library Partnership (LP) Certification for Journal Publishers,” Commonplace 1, no. 3 (2021), https://doi.org/10.21428/6ffd8432.e1326549; Sarah Lippincott and Katherine Skinner, “FOREST Framework for Values-Driven Scholarly Communication” (Atlanta, GA: Educopia, 2022), https://educopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/FOREST-Framework-2.0-Spring-2022.pdf; Rachel Borchardt, “Framework for Evaluating DEI Practices of Journals,” (2021) http://hdl.handle.net/1961/auislandora:94969.

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