It takes a log to make me mad, but a post to the American Scientist Open Access forum managed to do just that today. The post (which hasn't yet been archived) was written by Lisa Dittrich, a managing editor of the publisher Academic Medicine. I...quote...just the one line that provoked me into blogging about it:
Most scientists, though, with the possible exception of physicists, have been quite content with the "open access" they already have--namely, the ability to easily get content through their libraries, paid for by their library's budget.
WHAT??!! This goes enormously against everything I’ve ever experienced. Before working on the setup of our Repository, I worked on a Library help desk. This Library help desk was located at a Science based university, which, as far as I’m aware, is in the top 3 (if not top 1) in terms of money spent on journal subscriptions in the UK. I’m therefore slightly confused as to why I used to spend by far and away the largest amount of my time, dealing with enquiries/complaints from academics who were not happy that we didn’t hold a subscription to the articles they wanted.... I just can’t believe that a publisher has managed to convince herself that everything is fine and dandy, everyone always accesses what they want, and there is no problem with access to research!
Fortunately there has been some good news on the OA front, with yesterday's announcements from the various research councils regarding OA deposit of funded research (albeit at varying levels of mandate/encouragement). Perhaps the RCUK announcement will not only help to increase access, but perhaps even more importantly, will begin to increase knowledge and understanding of open access?
Update. Lisa Dittrich's full post is now available on the AmSci OA Forum archive.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/30/2006 10:42:00 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.
