October 1, 2004

Open Access to Journals Won't Lower Prices

By JOHN H. EWING

Journals publishing is in crisis. For years, subscription prices have gone up rapidly, with the average annual increase now close to 10 percent; some journals cost three times as much today as they did a decade ago. The budgets of university libraries have fallen far behind, forcing librarians to cancel subscriptions. Publishers have used declining subscriptions as a rationale to increase prices even more. And the literature has expanded, creating fatter journals (and yet another reason for

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