The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has disbanded its "AnthroSource Steering Committee" because it had supported the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA). Hardly a surprising outcome: Like the Royal Society and many other learned societies, the AAA, has a strong publishing tail that manages to wag the AAA dog. And that tail does not wag the AAA in the interests of anthropological research or researchers. The resolution of this (undeniable) conflict of interest between researchers and their learned societies is very simple: It will not be their learned societies who ensure that Open Access is provided, free for all, but their institutions and funders, by mandating it, just as the FRPAA proposes to do (but with a few of the policy parameters fine-tuned to optimize them).
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/04/2006 11:47:00 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.
