Accommodating Open Access Publishing: funding issues from a university (library) perspective

Abstract

The open access community has agreed on the distinction between the two roads towards open access: the self-archiving road and the road towards publishing in an open access journal. This article will deal with issues related to publishing in Open Access Journals only. OA-journal publishing still has to find sustainable business models. Whether we have to deal with institutional membership, author publication charges or even article submitting fees a number of questions arise. Who should pay for an institutional membership – the university, the department or maybe the library? Who should pay the author publication charge – the author, the institution, the university or maybe the library? How can we, if we want to promote open access to scholarly information, free the author from coping with the payment issues and, in general, remove obstacles to open access publishing?