Frederick J. Friend, Improving access: is there any hope?Interlending & Document Supply, 30, 4 (2002) pp. 183-189. Excerpt: Authors have long shown more interest in the prestige of the publication than in the ability of users to access that publication, but authors are coming to recognise that their actions - such as the exclusive transfer of copyright - are damaging access. Publication is a long road from author to reader, and if access to journal literature is to improve, authors have to ensure that barriers are not erected at their end of the road which hinder access for users at the other end of the road. The open-access vision in the BOAI is achievable! It may be achieved through new purchasing models or through improvements in library co-operation. Because of the scale of user-need world-wide, it will only be achieved through electronic document supply if there is a radical shift in the way publishers and librarians think about document delivery. Given that open access is a new concept in scholarly communication, it is arguable that only those initiatives which are developing new models will succeed in making a major breakthrough in access. Barrier-free access can only be achieved through a break with the current economic models or with the current routes to content. Such initiatives are not the responsibility of only one community. Librarians, publishers and authors are all involved in movements like SPARC or the BOAI. If there is to be much better access to journal literature in the future, realising the BOAI vision, it will come through collaboration between all the participants in such movements. Librarians, publishers and authors need not lose out as open access is achieved, but the big winners will be all those users across the world who are hungry for academic information." (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/03/2003 06:15:00 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.
