Peter Farnham and William Brinkley, Society Publishers Provide More Than Open Access, The Scientist, July 5, 2004. A response from the standpoint of progressive society publishers, especially the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), to PLoS criticism. Excerpt: "[S]ince 2001, a major group advocating the 'author-pays' model, the Public Library of Science (PLoS), has launched a broad-based attack on all business models for scientific publication other than its own....PLoS claims that charges greater than its own fees for publication are excessive....PLoS grants unrestricted free distribution rights to its journal content; however, it has no mechanism to insure the integrity of the record." (PS: ASBMB does a better job defending its various forms of free access than in rebutting the criticism that is hasn't gone further. PLoS has criticized non-OA publishers, but it hasn't criticized business models other than its own that find other ways to pay for OA. If the basic PLoS criticism is that the good works that society publishers fund with their journal revenue do not justify access barriers to their journals, then ASBMB has not yet answered the criticism.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/03/2004 09:33:00 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.
