Outsell has released 13 predictions for the information content industry in 2004. Here's prediction #6: "The Open Access movement in scholarly and scientific publications will gain legitimacy."
In a separate, downloadable report to accompany the predictions, Outsell says this about open access (p. 9): "The Open Access
movement in scholarly and scientific publications will gain legitimacy as it
transforms from a loose collection of disjointed initiatives into a new model
backed by major universities and institutions worldwide....Academic
institutions and the scholarly publishing world have been at loggerheads for years over the increasing cost of journal subscriptions. The irony is that
most scholarly content is created by individuals employed by universities,
who are then required to pay for it again in the form of published works.
The new Public Library of Science is only the most prominent in a series of
open-access challenges to the scholarly publishing industry, which finds
itself in a real crisis situation as users and the organizations they work for start to revolt. As steam gathers under institutional archiving initiatives like DSpace, the infrastructure will be in place to support peer-to-peer from the get-go. Where there is a will, there is a way, and technology is providing the 'way' to enable creative new solutions for distribution,
access, and sharing of scholarly content. Watch for even more radical and flexible knowledge-sharing initiatives in this space that will increasingly call into question the structure of an entire publishing sector."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/12/2004 05:28:00 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.
