I was recently invited to join the European Union Science Board for Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN), a consortium of universities and academic presses whose goal is to develop an open access publication model for the humanities and social sciences. One aim of this 30-month effort is to achieve a sustainable publishing methodology and platform that improves the quantity, usability, and visibility of high-quality open access content in relevant fields of study.
All the participating institutions and their presses...[are] committed to uphold the principles of open access, to publish humanities and social science scholarship in multiple languages, and to work closely with university libraries.
The first meeting of the science board, hosted by the University of Amsterdam, took place in that city in early March....
From an American perspective, it is remarkable that a government would invest the equivalent of more than US$1 million to study and make recommendations regarding the tradition and future of the monograph in humanities and social science scholarship. The board's discussions, which focused on a range of problems relating to the monograph, were compelling. One major issue is that far fewer titles are now becoming available annually because of the rising cost of paper-based book publication business models; a related problem is that the chances for academic advancement for younger scholars may be hampered because they have fewer outlets for publication than did their predecessors....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/21/2009 11:32:00 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.
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.
