The May 20 issue of Science Magazine contains an interview with Bruce Alberts (accessible only to subscribers) on the occasion of his retirement as President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Excerpt (quoting Alberts): 'I think that the community should push for access to scientific information as quickly as possible. We tried [with the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences] to see how short we could make it. We actually tried only a 2-month delay. But the next year a number of librarians told us that they would wait the 2 months and not subscribe, saving the money for other journals. And so with regrets, our publication committee decided to let it slip to 6 months. It's an experiment, and maybe someday we'll move it ahead to 5 months. But 6 months has allowed us to maintain our subscription base. In fact, for 146 countries it's free immediately. But for scientists in the countries that can afford it --U.S. and Europe and Japan-- we ask them to pay.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/20/2005 10:09:00 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.
