What is Diamond Open Access?

Open access publishing takes many forms, often described in colorful—and sometimes complicated—terms like “green,” “gold,” and “bronze.” Our spring issue of Author Query focuses on the diamond open access model. Diamond open access makes the final version of an article or book immediately free for all readers AND allows authors to publish open works without paying fees or subventions.

UNESCO recognizes the diamond model as aligned with its 2021 Recommendation on Open Science and defines it as “an equitable approach to scholarly publishing. It provides online access to research outputs with no fees for readers or authors. Diamond Open Access relies on shared infrastructures and open licensing. These conditions enable scholarly knowledge to circulate as a digital public good.”

Learn more about how ACLS is supporting a shift toward open access that is free for both readers and authors. The Arcadia Open Access Publishing Award, part of our Open Access Book Prize competition, provides winning publishers with $30,000 to open at least two new books. The Path to Open pilot, hosted by JSTOR with input from the ACLS-facilitated Community Advisory Committee, will support at least 1,000 new open access authors by 2029. While Path to Open does not accommodate immediate open access, its participating authors are not required to pay any fees. And hear more from the library community about how equitable open access can be funded through collective investment models like Path to Open and others.

And finally, the Mapping Diamond Open Access Journals study—supported by the Gates Foundation and helmed by Lyrasis, the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s Center for Library Programs, and the California Digital Library—seeks to “illuminate the decentralized U.S. Diamond OA landscape, identify key challenges, and produce actionable recommendations to support sustainable, community-governed scholarly publishing.” Ensure that your favorite diamond OA journals are on the map by connecting them with this study!