From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2017 09:00:34 +0000

I’m sure that many of you will have already see the analysis of Ross
Mounce showing that a number of papers in hybrid journals where fees
have been paid to make the papers open access are being placed behind
paywalls on the publishers site:

http://rossmounce.co.uk/2017/02/20/hybrid-open-access-is-unreliable/

That post focusses on Elsevier, but he has found other examples at
many other publishers (most recently OUP).

We know that library colleagues spend a lot of time checking to ensure
that where the institution has paid an APC for publication in a hybrid
journal the paper is actually open access.  Obviously, some cases slip
through and Ross has spotted them.  But is it really the
responsibility of librarians and independent researches such as Ross
to police these issues.  Surely if one has paid - royally, in many
cases - one should expect to get the service one pays for?  The
disturbing thing is that this comes up every year or so and the
response is usually ‘we’re working on it’ - but it should be fixed by
now.

There is also a wider issue.  We are often told that we can rely on
publisher-driven services such as CHORUS to fulfil funder OA mandates.
But if publishers don’t know the correct status of the papers they
publish (and for which they have received money) how can institutions
have any faith in these services?

David Prosser