Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Michelle Romero, Open Access and the Case for Public Good: The Scientists' Perspective, Online, July/August 2003. A good summary of the positions taken, and issues discussed, at the International Symposium on Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science (Paris, March 10-11). Excerpt: "Researchers just want to do science. Publishers and industrial enterprises want to make money from their products. Everyone wants to see lab results translate into goods that will improve lives in both rich and poor countries. But can science find the means to thrive in a free-flowing digital information environment and still serve all its masters? Menon concluded the symposium, saying, 'Governments are impacted by the lobbies of commercial interests. Science is more diffused and doesn't lobby, per se, for its own interests. But governments will need to be made to understand, or science's case will be left behind.'" (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)