Robert T. Sataloff, Open access: Publishing future or finale?Ear Nose & Throat Journal, October 19, 2004. Excerpt: "Proponents of open-access publication believe that all scientific information should be available to the scientific community at no charge. Harold E. Varmus, president and CEO of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, is one of the most outspoken leaders of this movement. He and other open-access advocates support creation of online journals that charge no subscription fee. Rather, they charge authors a publication fee, usually between $500 and $1,500. One might assume that such fees provided by authors would be sufficient to sustain these journals. However, this incorrect assumption is one of several issues in the paradigm that warrant closer scrutiny....The response of traditional publishers has not always been above contention. In many cases, price inflation for indispensable journals has been (arguably) unreasonable. Some libraries have had to pay more than $20,000 a year for selected journals (Brain Research costs more than $21,000; Nuclear Physics A and B costs $23,000—and there are others). Neither individuals nor libraries can sustain spiraling subscription costs indefinitely....The ideal solution to the current publishing problem is not clear. However, it is clear that the entire scientific community needs to work closely with commercial and nonprofit publishers, libraries, and open-access advocates to develop a paradigm that will permit communication and dissemination of peer-reviewed scientific information in a manner that is cost-effective and sustainable for readers, authors, and distributors of scientific content."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/19/2004 01:00:00 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.
