Open Access Goals Revisited: How Green and Gold Open Access Are Meeting (or Not) Their Original Goals

Abstract

The authors ask how far the open access movement has come in meeting its initial goal of making scholarly research freely available to all potential users immediately upon publication through open digital repositories (green OA) or open access journals (gold OA). In 2002, the Budapest Open Access Initiative named the movement and examined the new opportunities that technology made possible. In 2012, the same group declared partial success: ‘We're solidly in the middle.’ The main challenge has been economic sustainability. The authors argue that gold OA has fared better and has more potential for economic stability than green OA. As commercial publishers have found ways to live with and even profit from open access, the movement has not yet achieved its goal of reducing costs for libraries. The future remains uncertain for OA as the means to meeting its goals need more critical evaluation and revision.