The editor in chief and the entire editorial board of the Journal of Library Administration announced their resignation last week in protest of licensing terms that stripped authors of almost all claims to ownership of their contributed work.

Board member Chris Bourg wrote in a blog post after the resignation: “It was just days after Aaron Swartz’ death, and I was having a crisis of conscience about publishing in a journal that was not open access.” The board had been working with publisher Taylor & Francis on terms that would allow articles to be released without a paywall, but the final deal asked contributors to pay $2,995 for each open-access article. The board rejected the terms after a number of authors objected.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

The Verge:

The ultimate future of the journal is still undetermined, but the next issue appears to be dead in the water. In a statement to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the journal’s editor-in-chief said he did not wish to vilify the publishers, but for the journal’s authors, the “math just didn’t add up.” The result, at least for now, is a journal with a well protected paywall and no editors.

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