In the February issue of Research Information, John Murphy profiles Sally Morris, the chief executive of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. Quoting Sally Morris: "Research output is continuing to grow because research funding is growing, and output keeps pace with funding. But library budgets are not growing at the same rate, so the proportion of the available literature they can afford to buy is going down. One of the key problems for libraries is that journals are getting bigger, because more articles are being published in them. Therefore the prices are going up, and it's a vicious circle because, if you charge more, you lose customers, and if you put the price up to replace lost customers, you end up disappearing up your own fundament. Some people are experimenting with new models where the author pays for publication and then the articles are distributed free. They argue that the costs of publishing should be included in the research funding." (PS: Sally is one the major forces leading society publishers to experiment with OA.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/21/2004 01:16:00 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.
