Roy Tennant, Open-Access Journals, Library Journal, October 15, 2003. A good, brief introduction to the major issues and initiatives. Excerpt: "The current system of scholarly communication is in need of major changes. Journal price increases have been so dramatic and devastating that faculty who typically don't know or care about library expenditures are now front and center in the battle to change the dominant paradigm. Simply put, this model is: faculty and researchers at universities, many of which are public institutions, create most scientific and academic journal literature. Faculty typically publish articles with commercial publishers for no compensation (in many cases they even pay to publish). Once published, the research and scholarship of their faculty are licensed by libraries from the commercial publishers, often at top dollar....It's too early to tell what impact the open-access revolution will have on the dominant paradigm. But the breadth and depth of the movement is impressive. Although the revolution has not yet succeeded in all of its goals, it is gaining enough ground that one can envision the toppling of the current system --unimaginable even a few years ago." (Thanks to Gary Price.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/16/2003 04:15:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
