[betterunix]

Publishers shot themselves in the foot. The unbelievable rate at which they have increased subscription fees was first noted decades ago -- these greedy companies can try to make excuses, but the "serials crisis" predates the Internet. No library should go broke trying to pay journal subscription fees.

If these companies had been less greedy and less annoying with their paywalls (seriously, even when your library has a "Spring subscription," you still get hit by paywalls) they would have a much easier time defending themselves. At this point, though, I think it is fair to say that publishers should be cut out of the loop entirely -- universities should spend their money hosting archives instead of paying subscription fees, and distribution should be done entirely over the Internet (perhaps using BitTorrent to distribute large archives). If publishers have something to bring to the table other than editing (which is done by volunteers in many journals, so what claim to publishers even have on that?), let them bring it.

[frl8fxdfdf]

I work in a small research institute, and we cannot afford a Springer subscription (or any other for that matters). Just too expensive if your institute is small.

We skim through the abstracts and buy individual papers. It's a joke.. seriously. How are we supposed to work that way?

[stfu]

Or you could just get a graduate student who has access to these papers to intern with your institute.

[ixacto]

Every public university that I have been to so far has offered free journal access to non-students.

[reeses]

Our annual budget includes about 7% allocated to subscriptions and memberships and we're still stuck with guessing from abstracts and citations whether individual papers will be worth it. I'm OK when they're $10-15, but more than that and I have to think about how much time it's going to save.

Then again, it's annoying when we elect not to buy the papers, decide to publish our results, and...Ffffff.

[RabbitAngstrom]

You got it: when you follow the money, it's clear why this article is happening. Journals have long used free labor for peer review and editing, and rake in the money with subscriptions (paywalls) and advertising.

The most impacted journals, in my estimation, will be the smaller ones that make no money via advertising or editorial. And there are hundreds (thousands?) of small journals to every Nature or Science.