This morning in Washington, a group of 48 non-profit publishers released the Washington D.C. Principles for Free Access to Science. The principles assert that non-profit publishers "reinvest all of the revenue from [their] journals in the direct support of science worldwide, including scholarships, scientific meetings, grants, educational outreach, advocacy for research funding, the free dissemination of information for the public, and improvements in scientific publishing." In addition, they support the following forms of free online access:
Selected important articles of interest are free online from the time of publication;
The full text of our journals is freely available to everyone worldwide either immediately or within months of publication, depending on each publisher's business and publishing requirements;
The content of our journals is available free to scientists working in many low-income nations;
Articles are made available free online through reference linking between these journals;
Our content is available for indexing by major search engines so that readers worldwide can easily locate information.
The signatories assert that "publication fees should not be borne solely by researchers and their funding institutions, because the ability to publish in scientific journals should be available equally to all scientists worldwide, no matter what their economic circumstances....[W]e believe that a free society allows for the co-existence of many publishing models." For more detail, see the page of background information, the press release, or the media advisory.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/16/2004 11:34:00 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.
