Choice? Springer Ups the Ante on Open Access
-- Library Journal, 07/13/2004
Springer, now the second-largest commercial STM publisher in the world, has announced that authors publishing in any of its journals can now choose to make their work freely, "permanently" available in return for an author charge. But is Springer's new Open Choice program a boost for open access or simply a bold strategy to compete with both burgeoning open access journals and traditional commercial publishers? Under the program, which begins immediately, authors can choose between making their work available through the existing subscription models or pay a $3000 author charge, plus any other applicable fees such as page charges for print editions, to have their articles freely accessible to the public through Springerlink, Springer's online platform. Each journal will feature a mix of paid and free content.
Springer CEO Derk Haank, former CEO of industry leader Elsevier, said the move was designed to "respond to the demands of the small group of researchers and certain publicly funded research communities" calling for wider access. "We want to offer our authors both options and let them choose," said Haank. "Ultimately, the customers will decide what they want." Open access pioneer Jan Velterop, CEO of BioMed Central, said, "It is indeed not open access. To be fair to Springer, they know it isn't open access, and that's why they call it Open Choice." True open access, Velterop says, implies by definition "that all use is fair use as long as the author and article are properly cited." Springer's program breaks from that definition is some key ways. First, a strict copyright policy remains in effect for Open Choice authors. While Springer will make articles available to users for free, the company continues to require "standard consent-to-publish and transfer-of-copyright agreements" from authors, which it says is necessary to protect authors' rights. It also forbids "copying, reproducing, distributing, or posting of the publisher's version of the article on a third party server." Velterop also points out that Open Choice articles have made no commitment to be archived in an open access repository, such as PubMed Central.
