...[T]he plan has met skepticism from journal publishers as well as some scientists.
UT physics professor Charles Chiu said journals should be priced in the free market but the group’s plan might be an improvement on the current system.
“Certainly there is room in improving the present journal-publication system,” he said. “It is conceivable that [the group] may lead to an efficient program, which has the potential to win out in competing with the current system of journal publication. Personally, I am comfortable using either system.”
[Joseph Serene, publisher and treasurer of the American Physical Society] said the plan was well-intentioned and the American Physical Society would participate if the consortium’s organizers collect enough money. But he said he worries that some of the participating libraries and research groups might eventually pull out of the project, leaving the journals with no financial support.
“If it comes unglued, getting the subscription money back would be a real challenge,” he said....The American Physical Society is a nonprofit group, and Serene said the price increases of journals are probably coming from commercial publishers....
Serene said UT pays about $17,000 a year for an online-only subscription to the American Physical Society’s seven major journals, which includes about 16,000 papers a year. He said that after adjusting for inflation, that price had remained basically unchanged since 2003.
Additionally, Serene said his society allows its contributors to publish their papers on open-access Web sites like arXiv, a free database that hosts draft versions of scientific papers.
“Most anybody who really wants to see a paper can see it,” Serene said, though he added that access was more restricted in other fields like biomedicine.
“It’s the kind of thing that sounds wonderful,” Serene said of the consortium’s plan. “We’d all love if scientific literature could be open to everyone. But we’re concerned it may have stability problems.”
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/30/2009 01:48:00 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.
