New SPARC Guide Reviews Income Models For Supporting Open Access Journals

ARL's SPARC has just released a new guide guide that provides an overview of income models currently being used to support the open-access distribution of peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific journals. From the press release:

“Who pays for Open Access?” is a key question faced by publishers, authors, and libraries as awareness and interest in free, immediate, online access to scholarly research increases. SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) examines the issue of sustainability for current and prospective open-access publishers in a timely new guide, “Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice,” by Raym Crow.

“Income models for Open Access: An overview of current practice” examines the use of supply-side revenue streams (such as article processing fees, advertising) and demand-side models (including versioning, use-triggered fees). The guide provides an overview of income models currently in use to support open-access journals, including a description of each model along with examples of journals currently employing it.

The website/guide is accessible at http://www.arl.org/sparc/publisher/incomemodels/