Open Access News

Summary from the press release: "It is in our interest as publishers to satisfy the needs of our authors, readers and institutional customers to the best of our ability; this entails paying close attention to what these communities are saying, and collaborating with them to develop new approaches as need arises. Scholarship-friendly publishers maximise access to and use of content; we also maximise its quality and, thus, prestige. It goes without saying that --by one business model or another-- publishers need to make enough money not just to cover our costs, but also to satisfy the needs of our business, and to continue to support the activities to which publishing income may contribute. However, we recognise that institutions' funds are increasingly inadequate to purchase all the information required by users, and we welcome collaboration with our customers to find new approaches which might solve this dilemma." Excerpts from the principles themselves:

1.1.2 Posting of final version. Our survey shows that over 60% of publishers allow authors to post the final, published version of their article on websites or repositories, some even providing the PDF for this purpose. Although some speculate that increasing use of OAI-compliant metadata will ultimately enable such posting to undermine subscription and licence income, this does not seem to be the case so far.

1.2 Dissemination by the publisher. Maximising access to authors' work is good for the publisher as well as the author, provided it does not undermine the publisher's financial model. Most publishers are finding a variety of ways to make more content available to more people.

1.2.4 Archival access. Publishers have a variety of models for providing access to their online back-files....If the timing is carefully chosen (it may differ between disciplines), it appears that [free online access] need not undermine sales.

1.2.6 Open Access journals. Making journals completely free to readers everywhere in the world is an appealing idea and one which is in tune with the mission of many learned societies, although it is of course necessary to assure that costs are adequately covered, for example by authors, institutions, or funding agencies; there is a growing number of Open Access journals, many of them experimental. Not all publishers will feel able to take this route, but all will be interested to learn from the findings of the pioneers.

2.2 Citation. ...There is early evidence that widespread online access increases citations --thus it would seem to follow that Open Access journals might prove in time be the mostly highly cited of all.