Samuel Moore, "Publishing Beyond the Market: Open Access, Care, and the Commons" (U Michigan Press, 2025)

Dec 12, 2025

In this discussion, Samuel Moore, a Scholarly Communication Specialist at Cambridge University Libraries, delves into the intricacies of open access publishing. He argues for a shift from market-driven models to community-managed, scholar-led initiatives. Moore critiques the limitations of policies like Plan S, emphasizing the importance of ethical practices and collective governance in publishing. He highlights the role of care ethics and the need for a commons-based approach, proposing radical changes to support diverse publishing ecosystems across disciplines.

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INSIGHT

Access Without Control Is Incomplete

Open access succeeded at making research freely accessible but neglected who controls publishing infrastructure.
That oversight allowed commercial publishers to reassert control via new revenue models.

INSIGHT

Commons Is Community, Not Just Free Copies

The commons is about community governance and practices, not just free access to outputs.
Effective commons require defined commoners, boundary rules, and shared practices of commoning.

INSIGHT

Licenses Reinforce Individual Ownership

Creative Commons licenses emphasize individual authorship and retain intellectual property norms.
That approach can contradict collective, commons-style ownership of scholarly work.

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I talked to Dr. Samuel Moore about his recent book, Publishing Beyond the Market: Open Access, Care, and the Commons, (U Michigan Press, 2025)

Samuel Moore is the Scholarly Communication Specialist at Cambridge University Libraries, Associate Lecturer at Cambridge Digital Humanities, and College Research Associate at King's College, Cambridge.

In his book, Sam argues that the move to open access should focus less on the free accessibility of research outputs and more on who controls the publications and infrastructures for scholarly communication. By deploying theoretical literature on science and technology studies, care ethics, and the commons, the book critically interrogates open access and reimagines a more ethical future for researcher-led publishing. A case study of Plan S – the multi-funder European policy for open access publishing – explores its tendency to rehearse all the failures of commercialisation. Through critical engagement with the open access landscape, the book reveals the shortcomings of market-centric and policy-based approaches to open access book and journal publishing, particularly their tendency to reinforce conservatism, commercialism, and private control of publishing.

Going forward, the book explores the importance of collectivity and democratic governance within the transition to open access publishing. It suggests that developing a commons-based, scholar-led publishing landscape through a series of presses that are each managed by working academics could offer a productive counterpoint to marketised systems of open access and subscription publishing. In weaving themselves together in order to "scale small" these publishing initiatives would act as a counter-hegemonic project based on mutual reliance and care. By illustrating how these projects build toward a commons-based publishing future, and how they may complement other approaches to publishing within university presses and libraries, the book culminates in an argument for the infrastructures, policies, and forms of governance needed to nurture such a collective vision.

Sam’s book, which I am glad to say is available as an open-access ebook alongside the paperback, is the subject of our conversation.

Stephen Pinfield is Professor of Information Services Management at the University of Sheffield, UK, and Senior Research Fellow at the Research on Research Institute (RoRI).

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