ESA and Scientific Publishing—Past, Present, and Pathways to the Future

Abstract

The leadership of the Society recognizes the potential of new trends toward open access (OA) publishing and the value of having the papers published in ESA journals freely accessible to the widest possible audience. However, because fully OA journals do not charge for subscriptions, applying such a model to the ESA journals would require major changes in the financial basis and the operations both of the ESA journals and of the Society’s activities more broadly. For most of our history, library subscriptions have paid for copyediting, typesetting, archiving, distribution, and other publication services, allowing us to keep charges to authors at a relatively low level. Subscription fees have also partially defrayed the costs of outreach, education, and scientific meetings, providing stable core funding to complement membership fees, the annual meeting, donations, and grants.