Why Scholarly Societies Are Against Open Access

Doug Rocks-Macqueen | Doug's Archaeology | September 14, 2012

As I mentioned earlier today I wrote an article for the Index on Censorship special issue about censorship of academia. The online version unfortunately was missing a table that was in the print version. It was right before I say,

Most of the societies that opposed or were critical of open access in the White House’s consultation receive a good portion of their funding from publishing; for some it’s over 80 per cent of their revenue. Some of these societies are in essence publishers with an individual subscription option attached to their publications, called a membership.

As it really drives home the point I was trying to make I have reproduced it here. Background info- the list of societies comes from those who opposed Open Access in the White Houses call for comment on Open Access, it also includes  the American Chemical Society as it is very anti-OA. The information comes from their 990 tax returns or annual reports (click on links or society name to see the raw data)...