The University of Louisville Libraries supports open access without charging fees to publish or to read. Paying Article Processing Charges (APCs) author by author and article by article is not a financially sustainable model and does not reflect the values of equitable open access publishing, as it limits open access to the most well-funded research at the expense of crucial research otherwise essential to the broader research endeavor. Moreover, APCs often entail “double dipping” by the publishers, since the individuals, institutions, or libraries paying the fees may also pay for subscriptions to the same journals to access content still residing behind paywalls.
The University Libraries do not have a fund to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) on behalf of University of Louisville scholars. We do, however, support scholars interested in publishing open access in other ways:
- Through ThinkIR, the University of Louisville’s Institutional Repository, the Libraries manages the infrastructure for publishing open access journals and self-archiving scholarly articles.
- The Open Access Journals sponsored through our institutional repository are published without cost to read or fees for authors.
- Most author agreements permit self-archiving. The Libraries provide the repository and assistance with this process, and you can link these open access versions of your scholarship to your Elements profile. Contact thinkir@louisville.edu for help with:
- Researching the copyright status of your publication agreements and scholarly works to help identify the permissible version for self-archiving;
- Depositing your scholarship into ThinkIR; and
- Managing long-term preservation and accessibility of your scholarly materials.
- The Libraries offers enhanced subscriptions to selected journals, which may cover part or all of the APCs for UofL-affiliated authors submitting to those journals. Examples include:
- BMJ Case Reports
- Cambridge University Press
- Future Science Group
- Institute of Physics (IOP)
- Microbiology Society
- We can help you find publishing opportunities in open access journals
- We provide resources and assistance with publishing and selecting Open Educational Resources (OERs) and affordable textbooks. See https://library.louisville.edu/oer/home
This statement was approved by University Libraries Senior Administrative Team (SAT), November 2023.