Open access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. However, only around 28% of scholarly literature is openly accessible. While publishers provide important services like organizing peer review and distribution, they have very high profit margins around 40% for some large publishers. There are barriers to accessing research for most of the world's population. OA options like green (self-archiving) and gold (publication in OA journals) are growing but come with their own challenges and limitations. The future of scholarly publishing is trending towards more open access but change has been slow and new business models are still emerging.