Over the past decade, the landscape of academic publishing has changed dramatically, with publishers moving from subscription-based models to “open access” in which papers are available to read free of charge. Many journals have made the decision to maintain revenue by charging authors for this, via so-called “Article Processing Charges” (APCs) which can run to $1000s, thereby closing the door on those without funds to pay. More recently, there have been moves to encourage researchers to publish using “Diamond” Open Access wherein papers are published without charge to the authors and without cost to the reader. In this talk I shall discuss the ennvironment for Open Access Publishing in Astrophysics with reference to the Open Journal of Astrophysics (OJAp), which offers a not-for-profit service of this kind using an arXiv-overlay model. I will also offer a possible vision of the future of truly “Open Access” publishing based on a global network of institutional and/or subject-based repositories.

Maynooth University/University of Barcelona