Three quick comments on Rudy Baum, The Open-Access Myth, Chemical and Engineering News, February 23, 2004 (only accessible to subscribers), which Garrett Eastman just posted a few minutes ago.
Excerpt: "The dangerous, usually unspoken, myth that makes the argument [for OA] seem reasonable is this: STM publishers add little value to the research they publish and therefore should not charge institutions for subscriptions to the electronic versions of their journals, or, at the very least, they should provide open access to the public a short time after publication." (PS: Wrong. OA doesn't say that publishers shouldn't be paid for their services, merely that there are better ways to cover their expenses than by charging readers or libraries.)
Excerpt: "And it's not clear to me what advantage is conferred by shifting the cost of publishing from libraries to researchers." (PS: It's called open access. It's barrier-free access to an important body of literature by everyone with an internet connection.)
Excerpt: "The open-access movement's demand that an entirely new and unproven model for STM publishing be adopted is not in the best interests of science." (PS: Entirely? There have been OA journals since the late 1980's. Is it even relevant that the subscription-based model has been judged unsustainable by a growing number of universities, libraries, and analysts? If Baum were reviewing a scientific article this cavalier with evidence and balance, I assume that he'd reject it.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/24/2004 01:37:00 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.
