Pamela Burdman, A Quiet Revolt Puts Costly Journals on Web, New York Times, June 26, 2004 (free registration required). A good, brief introduction to the pricing crisis and the benefits of OA. Excerpt: "The high subscription cost of prestigious peer-reviewed journals has been a running sore point with scholars, whose tenure and prominence depend on publishing in them. But since the Public Library of Science, which was started by a group of prominent scientists, began publishing last year, this new model has been gaining attention and currency within academia. More than money and success is at stake. Free and widespread distribution of new research has the potential to redefine the way scientific and intellectual developments are recorded, circulated and preserved for years to come....'Elsevier doesn't write a single article,' said Dr. Lawrence H. Pitts, a neurosurgeon at the University of California at San Francisco and chairman of the faculty senate of the 10-campus system. 'Faculty write the articles for them, faculty review the articles for them and faculty mostly edit the journals for them, and then we get to buy the journals back from a company that makes a very large profit.'...The pressure is beginning to have an effect. More publishers have begun opening their archives 6 to 12 months after publication. Molecular Biology of the Cell, published by the American Society for Cell Biology, now opens up its archives after two months, and as its editor-in-chief, Mr. Yamamoto hopes to convert the journal to open access soon. Even Elsevier made a recent concession to university libraries that are moving into digital publishing and archiving, offering blanket permission for authors to post their journal articles on their own institutions' Web sites. 'We're watching open access very carefully,' Mr. [John] Regazzi [Elsevier's managing director] said. 'We're trying to learn from it.'"
Update. On June 29, the NYT published a letter to the editor from Ed White in response to Burdman's article. Excerpt: "I love to read scientific journals, when I can get to them, even though I am only a clerical worker in my 'real' life. I am no threat to anyone's research, and I am part of the public who provides financial support for the research. Meanwhile, who's to say that I or some other nonprofessional might have an epiphany from such reading and discover some connections that no academic has yet seen? The advancement of science, for the betterment of everyone, requires openness. Thank goodness for the power of the Web, and the folks in this article, in promoting more egalitarian societies!"
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/26/2004 06:56:00 AM.
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.
