Peter Gruss, in a letter titled Open Access to Science and Culture, Science 303, 311 (16 January 2004) (access restricted to subscribers), remarks on German scholarly societies and other European institutions efforts to promote open access publishing, particularly with the Berlin Declaration. He references European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO), which encourages holders of cultural resources to make such material freely available. Admitting questions about how dissemination of scholarly literature should be supported in an open access environment, Gruss writes: "But is it really necessary to answer every question before supporting the right idea? Like the Web, science cannot be steered by central organizations. Good science finds its way forward, which means that good science finds efficient and effective instruments to be successful. However, science alone might not be strong enough to break existing legal and financial barriers, which is why research organizations like the Max Planck Society feel obliged to give the vision of open access a chance."
Posted by
Garrett at 1/15/2004 05:24:00 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.
