Day: Monday, May 4, 2:45 PM to 3:45 PM
Room: TBD
What is the Future of APCs? The Case at Dartmouth
Presenter: Shawn Martin, Dartmouth Library
Description: Many libraries, including Dartmouth, encourage open access by helping faculty pay for their article processing charges (APCs). The Dartmouth program started around 2011, and regulations (eg. no hybrid journals), the demand for APC funding has increased significantly over the past eight years, and we, like many institutions, have struggled with sustaining funding and finding the best way for libraries to encourage open access publishing in the future.
Over the past few months, I have analyzed the trends of Dartmouth’s APC fund. Most of the fund’s use is from STEM disciplines (especially the School of Medicine). APC charges have remained relatively stable over time. Somewhat surprisingly, the journals for which faculty request APC funds represent a wide variety of open access journals, not just large publishers such as Elsevier or Wiley. Finally, faculty, especially non-tenured and junior faculty, tend to request APC funds multiple times.
As we at the Dartmouth Library thinks about the future of the APC fund, we are faced with a complicated choice. The APC fund is a popular program with faculty, so decreasing the number of funded requests would not be well received. As more publishers utilize APCs, the library cannot simply increase funding indefinitely. What is the best way to encourage open access publishing? Should we focus funding on graduate