But Wait, There’s More: Just $3000 Buys Open Access to Your Article

I thought $29.95 was bad, but get this.

Listen to this deal from WileyInterScience:

Authors of accepted peer-reviewed articles have the choice to pay a fee in order for their published article to be made freely accessible to all. For 2008, the OnlineOpen fee is fixed at US$3000 for most journals.

I’m having a little trouble with that “freely accessible” coupled with a $3000 fee.

OnlineOpen is available to authors of primary research articles who wish to make their article available to non-subscribers on publication, or whose funding agency requires grantees to archive the final version of their article. With OnlineOpen the author, the author’s funding agency, or the author’s institution pays a fee to ensure that the article is made available to non-subscribers upon publication via Wiley InterScience, as well as deposited in the funding agency’s preferred archive.

This phrase is interesting: “funding agency requires grantees.” Many, many scientific studies reported in these journals are supported by state or Federal funding, that is, by taxpayer monies. I suppose what this means in practice is that a line item of $3000 must be added to each proposal for funding from such sources and then that $3000 goes into Wiley InterScience’s pockets. Out of yours, into theirs.

For Just $29.95 You Can Have Access to Your Own Article for 24 Hours!!!

Help! Is there someone out there who can save me hours of research by explaining how I allowed this to happen to myself? Or how this happened to me?

Here we go: Back in 1991 I submitted an article to the Journal of Popular Culture. To do so, I became a member of The Popular Culture Association and thus received a subscription to the journal.

My article, “Pets and Lovers: The Human-Companion Animal Bond in Contemporary Literary Prose” was published in 1991, the Summer issue, I think.

I wanted to check something in it the other day, and instead of rummaging through the piles, I thought, I’ll just look online.

I have no academic affiliation. If I did, I could log in through my university and read my own work. That isn’t an option.