The aim of gold open access funded by article processing charges (APCs) is to fulfill the altruistic and vitally important goal of achieving free access to scholarly publication. However, if financed by academic library collections budgets, APC-funded open access will ultimately result in the abandonment of fundamental values of academic libraries and librarianship. This opinion paper derives from remarks delivered at the 2016 Charleston Conference. The author was invited to participate in the annual Hyde Park Debate in which she argued that APC-funded open access is antithetical to the values of librarianship.