Julie Bell, Changes are being forced at costly journals, Baltimore Sun, August 16, 2004. (Free registration required; an abridged version appears in today's Boston Globe, with no registration requirement.) Excerpt: "For more than 100 hundred years, publication of major scientific and medical breakthroughs has been concentrated in a handful of prestigious journals. They have been the world's primary window into discoveries including the structure of DNA and the configuration of the human genome. But the reach and power of the Internet, rising subscription prices and pressure from patients are forcing changes in the world of scientific publishing. Those changes, advocates say, may end a publisher's paradise, in which knowledge of cutting-edge research is initially available to only those who can afford to subscribe....Patient advocates are also a powerful force in the Web publishing movement. They insist on easy, searchable access to the results of taxpayer-funded studies. "Some of that stuff could make the difference between whether someone lives or dies, or the quality of life," said Lynda Dee, president of AIDS Action Baltimore."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/16/2004 07:50:00 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.
