NEWS

IPLC Response to the Article Development Charge
Proposed by the American Chemical Society

The 13 Ivy Plus libraries are both surprised by and united in opposition to the zero embargo option announced by the American Chemical Society (ACS) on 21 September 2023. This unexpected new charge is a clear challenge to both authors’ rights and the developing scholarly communications ecosystem. According to this policy, an Article Development Charge (ADC) of $2,500 would be charged to authors who seek to retain and exercise the right to deposit a pre-publication version of their article in an open repository once their manuscript enters the ACS peer review process.

According to the ACS policy, this charge is to cover the costs of the ACS publishing services through the final editorial process. However, ACS will continue to charge the fees for access to these articles that purportedly cover the same services for articles subject to 12-month embargoes, resulting in both authors and subscribers compensating ACS for pre-acceptance services under the new ADC model. In addition, the ADC does not obviate the requirement for an Article Processing Charge (APC) if the author wishes their article to be openly accessible at the point of publication with ACS, although the cost of the ADC will be credited towards the APC.

https://ivpluslibraries.org/2023/11/iplc-response-to-the-article-development-charge-proposed-by-the-american-chemical-society/