Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Reflections on OA, esp. OA journals

Bo-Christer Björk, Open Access - Some reflections from a Northern perspective, a slide presentation from the JISC International Colloquium, June 21-22, 2005. It includes a detailed proposal for funding OA journals.

Slide 15 quotes Finland's Premier Matti Vanhanen, who has to be the world's most enlightened head of state on OA issues:

One important recommendation concerns the advancement of open access scientific publishing. The goal is that scientific publications will be freely available on the net for citizens and scholars. At the moment the usage and availability of the scientific publications is curtailed by the high subscription fees of printed journals and electronic scientific publications, and also by publishing agreements in which the scholars surrender some of their rights to the publishers. In the name of the progress of science and for the benefit of research it is necessary that the results of the scientific inquiry reach both the academic community and the general public as soon and as easily as possible. I regard this issue especially important also from the point of view of the Information Society Programme of the government.