Publishing for Nothing, Science for Free, DCLnews (the newsletter of the Data Conversion Laboratory), September 21, 2004. An unsigned editorial that lays out both sides but does not take a position. Excerpt: "It isn’t just government committees who are calling for more open-access journals [PS: should be "open-access repositories"]; scientists are too. Twenty-five Nobel Prize winners joined the open-access fray at the end of August, asking the government to make all taxpayer-funded research papers freely available....Those signing the letter included DNA co-discoverer James Watson and former National Institute of Health chief Harold Varmus, a long-time supporter of open-access....Many publishers are concerned that open access is being forced on them by government intervention, which they see as unfair. '[We don’t] oppose open-access publishing, but only its premature and unwarranted imposition through government mandate,' the Association of American Publishers said in a statement. Alan Leshner, chief of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes Science magazine, takes a slightly different view: 'I think all the problems are workable [for the free access publishing plan]. The question is how to do it so we can still pay our bills.' "
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/22/2004 04:06:00 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.
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.
