[KK] But why bother? What's wrong with the established scientific publishing system?
[HV] Well, it doesn't live up to the opportunities that are created by the internet. The system as it exists has produced many good journals, but journals are expensive and increasingly people are reading and searching online. There's an opportunity here to eliminate boundaries between the individual and the information, and between pieces of information. I think all of us were startled by the incredible power that the internet provided for looking at and working with the genome. If we had published pieces of genomes paper by paper we would be much less far along than we are. That model has been a powerful force in helping people to think about how the scientific literature can be worked with.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/01/2003 08:57:00 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.
