Open-Access Journals: Idealism and Opportunism, by Walt Crawford

Open-access journals have become widespread in recent years, but so have misunderstandings about such journals, fueled by a lack of actual data. This issue of Library Technology Reports looks at the state of open-access journals as of mid-2014 and how they got there, based on visits to the website of every open-access journal accessible to a reader of English. The report shows the state of gold open access (OA), including the percentage of journals that require author-side fees (and the percentage of articles published by those journals), the number of journals and articles overall and by broad subject category, the apparent “gold rush” since 2006 within certain subject categories, and more. The report includes advice for dealing with gold OA journals and recommending them to scholars and suggestions for library actions to improve open access.