Open Access News

One can see a parallel between the telecenters and the open access archives. Both of them are using advances in technology to include the excluded and making available much needed information at a low cost through the "public commons" approach. Both of them are overcoming a serious problem by intelligently marrying technology and the public commons approach. Both of them are about sharing and caring. Both of them are eminently suited to increase the overall productivity of the world as a whole and lead to greater collective happiness. It sounds almost utopian. But many publishers, including some scientific societies, are working to stall the progress of the open access movement, as they see it as a potential threat to their business interests. On the other hand many donor agencies, such as the Wellcome Trust, who fund scientists to perform research are avid supporters of the movement. In the area of scientific data, as distinct from full texts of research papers, organizations such as ICSU (and CODATA) are promoting the culture of open access. Even Celera Genomics Corp., the for-profit company that sequenced the human genome simultaneously with the public-funded Human Genome Project, has stopped selling subscriptions for access to its sequence/data and would donate the data to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, USA. As Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute put it "data just wants to be public." Scientists in developing countries need particular attention, says Bruce Alberts, former President of the US National Academy of Sciences. In his 1999 presidential address [30] to the National Academy of Sciences, USA, he suggested "Connecting all scientists to the World Wide Web, where necessary by providing subsidized Internet access through commercial satellite networks," and "taking responsibility for generating a rich array of scientifically validated knowledge resources, made available free on the Web, in preparation for a time when universal Internet access for scientists is achieved in both developing and industrialized nations." ...Unfortunately digital technology also has brought about new forms of information enclosure that undermines the public's right to use, share, and reproduce information. Such enclosures threaten to undermine the political discourse, free speech, and creativity needed for a healthy democracy. And in reality governments can and do have considerable control over what is transacted on the Internet. As the Economist pointed out, "the Internet is part of the real world. Like all frontiers, it was wild for a while, but policemen always show up eventually."...As Nancy Kranich has said, public access to the Internet is vital to rekindle civic participation, and to claim for public space and to promote the public interest in the digital age. There are two ways of promoting public access to the Internet: [1] Enabling citizens the world over to use the tools of the information network to gain access to available information, as well as to create their own information and circulate it worldwide. [2] Ensuring free access to essential information, so that the opportunities provided by the Internet are actually used to spread throughout the world access by all to knowledge.