3 ms·

My taxes go to funding a lot of this research. I am paying for it already, so why do I need to pay for it again?

• eesmith 9y ago
  In an abstract sense (meaning, not coupled to the current economic situation), the journals provide archival services. This may include scanning old publications, OCR'ing them, and making them available for search and retrieval; a service which wasn't expected when the research was done. This may include continuing content curation. I have sent corrections to a journal because their system contained incorrect information, such as in incomplete title. In one case they combined two letters to the editor into a single DOI entry, and needed to break it into two. They have staff which can handle those corrections, and those staff need to be paid. They may also provide addition search capabilities beyond the free ones available from, say, Google Scholar, and they may update the interfaces for improved usability and for better integration with tools like citation managers. While I don't see how those activities justify the current high prices, I disagree with the idea that public funding for the original research means there should be no additional funding for continued archiving and access.