Gregory Ippolito and three co-authors, Towards Open Access, Molecular Cancer, June 2, 2005. An editorial. Excerpt: 'Indeed it seems that an increasing number of subscription-based journals are exploring hybrid approaches, such as that used by PNAS, that enable authors to offer their content online by paying publication costs for open access. But the publishing world is uniquely devoid of market forces that might expedite this transition. One need only look to the skyrocketing subscription costs (print or online) for scientific and medical journals, and the inability of institutional libraries to afford them. A study by the NIH concluded that journal prices increased during the last decade at a rate that was over 6 times inflation. A recent editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine acknowledges that some journal editors and publishers will perceive some aspects of the Public Access Policy as "potential threats" to their "revenue sources". In addition, some traditional publishers have assaulted Open Access journals and the NIH policy initiative with dubious arguments....As the number of Open Access journals and publishing houses grows, the scientific community is now in the position to 'vote' for one or the other model. We firmly believe that immediate and unrestricted access to scientific information will be the gold standard for scientific publication and urge every researcher to submit their manuscripts to Open Access journals. The growing number of freely available articles, which are archived in PubMed Central, marks the trend towards Open Access.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/04/2005 12:11:00 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.
