The third Open Access Barcamp, which was organised by open-access.network, took place in Göttingen on 14 and 15 May. At one session, the question of what libraries can do to support fair open access was discussed. The following blog post builds on this discussion in a group of about 20 persons. We preface the discussion points with a definition of the concept of fair open access.

Everyone's talking about the concept of diamond open access, not least since the publication of the OA Diamond Journals Study in 2021 (see Becerril et al., 2021, and Bosman et al., 2021) and the subsequent Action Plan for Diamond Open Access (Ancion et al., 2022), a joint undertaking by Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS, and the French National Research Agency (ANR).

Although there is still no generally shared definition of diamond open access, we can state that it is used as a collective term for business models where the publishing costs are not passed on to the authors (or editors). In addition, some definitions note that the infrastructure or the publication must be funded by a higher education institution or a public body.¹ As there is no shared definition, there are –still? – no generally binding criteria on the basis of which we can assess whether a publication or an infrastructure is diamond open access.

Fair open access, on the other hand, refers to a list of criteria with which journals – irrespective of their business model or funding body – can be described with regard to the fulfilment of certain values. The Fair Open Access Alliance (FOAA)² formulated five principles that a journal must fulfil in order to be considered fair open access, namely: (1) It is scholar-led; (2) authors retain the rights in their works; (3) all articles are published open access immediately; (4) the submission and publication of contributions is not conditional on the payment of a fee; and (5) any fees that may be payable are low, transparent, and in proportion to the work carried out. In contrast to diamond open access, journals that have an APC-based model are not excluded per se as long as APCs are voluntary and the journal is fully non-profit (see the Clarification Notes of the FOAA principles). Although these principles were specifically formulated for journals, they can be adapted for application to other forms of publication/publication formats and infrastructures.

Diamond open access and fair open access are neither synonymous nor mutually exclusive. Although neither of them is a subset of the other, there are overlaps: Many (but not all!) diamond open access journals do in fact fulfil the fair open access criteria.³ On the other hand, many (but not all!) of the publishers that have diamond open access journals in their portfolios strongly support the values behind the fair open access criteria.⁴ And, to make things even more complicated, there are also non-profit journals that are funded by APCs and fulfil the criteria for fair open access but are not considered to be diamond open access journals because of the APCs (e.g. Quantum).⁵

In other words: diamond open access and fair open access adopt different perspectives. Because we deal below with criteria for libraries' possibilities to provide support, we advocate using the term fair open access in this case.

Our premise is as follows: We primarily support values (free access to information for everyone; free participation in scholarly discourse for everyone; the ability of research and researchers to act effectively) and only secondly business models – and not the other way around. It goes without saying that it is a matter of supporting relevant content and initiatives that have suitable quality assurance.

What forms can this support take? Below, we compile aspects discussed at the Barcamp session. On this occasion, we focus on ideas for types of expenditure and other activities – and do not consider questions relating to operative implementation.

The FOAA principles specify very concrete criteria for fair open access; in addition, local criteria must be taken into account. Many institutions will make their support for a publication or an infrastructure subject to general acquisition criteria, for example:

• Does the infrastructure or the publication have disciplinary relevance for the institution?
• Do the institution's own members publish in the journal or the series?
• Are the institution's own members involved as editors in the journal or the series? Is a scholar from the institution possibly a senior member of the editorial board (e.g. editor-in-chief)?
• Are the contributions relevant for teaching?

Once the institutional framework has been clarified, the question arises as to what exactly should, can, and may be supported:

• Personnel costs (supporting and/or substantive) editorial activities and/or work on the infrastructure
• Funding of editorial services provided by third parties: typesetting, clarifying image rights, translating, accessible implementation of the publication
• Financial support for journal flipping
• Financial support for infrastructure and/or intermediary organisations, often through institutional memberships (e.g. DOAJ; DOAB; OAPEN; ORCID; DSpace; PKP, the organisation behind OJS/OMP; arXiv; AEUP; COAR)
• Funding of concrete publications, for example journals (via a consortium or as an individual funder)

There is growing criticism of DEAL and similar publish-and-read agreements – also by researchers who feel that they are disadvantaged due to the orientation of their institution's open access funding activities or because the publishing culture in their discipline does not match the funding logic.⁶

Against this backdrop, we wish to stress that fair open access can also be supported without a fair open access fund. Top of the list in this regard are repositories, university presses, and journal hosting services – always provided they have a clear open access policy. Such publishing services and infrastructures are established at many institutions, and we strongly advocate allotting sufficient personnel resources for their operation and further development in libraries.
In addition, further activities are conceivable that either affect day-to-day open access advisory services or have a more indirect effect:

• Identify fair open access activities at one's own institution.
• Support the professionalisation of diamond or fair open access journals (e.g. by supporting the process of DOAJ indexation by providing know-how and/or putting people in touch with contact persons) – in a nutshell: empower and support journal editors in meeting funding requirements.
• Increase awareness in one's own institution (especially awareness of fair open access or the workings of the scholarly publishing market and the local impacts of the pressure on costs).
• Bring about changes in the system of research assessment at one's own institution (e.g. through rewarding openness practices in the application procedure⁷).
• At institutions with consortium offices: Support consortium negotiations and formations for fair open access journals ("establishing KOALA consortia yourself")
• Expand the target groups of the advisory services to include editors

Libraries are among the primary paying "customers" of scholarly publications – it is part of our supply mandate to organise access for our institutions' members. We can and should take responsibility so that – as a consequence of the transformation of business models – the serials crisis does not grow into a tangible publishing crisis. This means, in our view, that libraries must engage (more) actively with the sustainable operation of not-for-profit, scholar-led publishing initiatives and infrastructures – which also includes funding.⁸ Fair open access or diamond open access must be firmly planned in the budget – fair open access is not just a "nice-to-have".

We would like to mention the following (institutional) activities by way of example:

• KU Leuven: Fund for Fair Open Access
• University of Amsterdam: UvA Diamond Open Access Fund
• TU Berlin: Fair Open Access Fund
• Niedersächsischer Beirat für Bibliotheksangelegenheiten: NiedersachsenOPEN
• ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics: support for open access infrastructures; Open Library of Economics (OLEcon)

We look forward to learning about further examples in the comments section.

¹ For a detailed (critical) engagement with the concept, see Dellmann et al. (2022).
² The Fair Open Access Alliance is a foundation under Dutch law in which a group of scholars and librarians came together to form a kind of overarching organisation to pool the resources of similar initiatives (inter alia LingOA, MathOA, and the Open Library of Humanities). Since early 2024, the former website – www.fairopenaccess.org – is unfortunately no longer accessible; fortunately, however, the contents can still be viewed via the Internet Archive (as of November 2023).
³ The journals and series funded by KOALA must be APC-free and also fulfil several requirements, which is why the majority of these journals are both diamond open access and fair open access. However, KOALA does allow journals and series to be funded by for-profit publishers.
⁴ Thus, large commercial publishers also publish APC-free open access journals (see, e.g., the large number of journal entries in the DOAJ with the filter "Without fees"), which are often funded by an institution or a learned society.
⁵ Demmy Verbeke and Laura Mesotten (Verbeke & Mesotten, 2022) impressively described the challenges of supporting APC-funded non-profit journals from a Fair Open Access Fund. In their article, they explain why they ultimately decided to cease paying non-profit APCs from the KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access.
⁶ For example, in a blog post on open-access.network, Kai Matuszkiewicz discusses the obstacles to more open access in media studies.
⁷ As an example of change, we would like to highlight Utrecht University. Background information on the university's new system of recognition and rewards is also provided by the following contribution: https://www.uu.nl/en/news/it-is-not-black-and-white.
⁸ The Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany has also drawn attention to the need for sustainable funding. In a Statement published in May 2024, it called on scientific institutions and their funders to see investments in non-commercial offerings as a strategically significant contribution to a future-oriented publishing infrastructure.

• Ancion, Z. et al. (2022): Action Plan for Diamond Open Access. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6282403.
• Becerril, A. et al. (2021): The OA Diamond Journals Study. Part 2: Recommendations. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4562790.
• Bosman, J. et al. (2021): OA Diamond Journals Study. Part 1: Findings. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4558704
• Dellmann, S. et al. (2022): Facetten eines Missverständnisses: Ein Debattenbeitrag zum Begriff „Diamond Open Access“. o-Bib. Das offene Bibliotheksjournal, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.5282/o-bib/5849.
• Verbeke, D., & Mesotten, L. (2022): Library funding for open access at KU Leuven. Insights, 35. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.565.

Dellmann, S., & Voigt, M. (2024). Fair Open Access fördern. open-access.network. doi.org/10.64395/v0d11-y2804.