Suhail Doi, Re: Open access publishing - Panacea or Trojan horse, Medical Science Monitor 10(4), LE3-LE4 (April 2004). (Free download with registration.) Doi responds to an earlier editorial (see posting from 2/3/04) with harsh words for existing open access models. He calls the BOAI "ridiculous," and says that author-payment models create "reverse restricted access... What this means is that control over what is published will shift from the consumers of research information to the sponsors of research. We now enter a generation of political and junk science publications simply because money determines what appears online." Doi also questions the longevity and sustainability of OA journals, claiming that "roughly half have disappeared;" but to support this statistic, he quotes a five-year old dissertation, which predates BioMed Central and other OA initiatives. The writer pooh-poohs self-archiving, calling it a "symptomatic solution" and not a real answer to costly scholarly publishing. "... What will prevent the 'library serials crisis' from becoming the 'authors publishing crisis," he asks, noting that scholars foot the bill both in the commercial and OA systems. Towards any solution to the question, Doi asks that it be "NOT researcher funded at all," and would advocate some sort of embargoed access, restricted for one year a la the DC Principles.
Posted by
Garrett at 4/29/2004 12:16:00 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.
