Sophie Rovner, Legislators Back Open Access, Chemical & Engineering News, July 26, 2004. On the major OA proposals for taxpayer-funded research in the US and the UK. Excerpt: "Government committees in the U.S. and U.K. are taking steps to promote free online access to scientific literature. Open-access proponents are delighted, but others are concerned about potential risks. The committees' support and other recent endorsements of open-access publishing 'amount to a stinging rebuke of the prevailing subscription-based publishing system,' according to a statement released by Public Library of Science, an open-access publisher. 'Open access is the only acceptable outcome.' Not so fast, responds the Association of American Publishers. 'We don’t oppose open-access publishing, but only its premature and unwarranted imposition through government mandate,' says Barbara J. Meredith, vice president for professional and scholarly publishing....In the U.K., a parliamentary committee last week issued a report on publishing. In 'Scientific Publications: Free For All?' the House of Commons’ Science & Technology Committee voiced its displeasure with the high prices and access limitations that characterize some scientific publishing and offered possible solutions. Research institutions should set up a network of free-access online repositories containing their staff's publications, the committee suggested, and government-funded researchers should put a copy of their publications in these repositories. The government should help fund the repositories and cover fees that authors pay publishers to make their articles open access. The U.K. government will respond to the committee’s report within the next few months."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/26/2004 08:50:00 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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
