The Washington Post article on the bill [FRPAA] quotes Patricia S. Schroeder, president and chief executive of the Association of American Publishers:
It is frustrating that we can’t seem to get across to people how expensive it is to do the peer review, edit these articles and put them into a form everyone can understand
Schroeder is overstating her case. Publishing has costs, but she should not be so misleading. Finding peer reviewers might cost publishers money, but the process itself is provided free of charge by members of the scientific community. Also, what does she mean by putting articles “into a form that everyone can understand”? Do physicists not understand papers on the arXiv because they are missing the publisher’s input? Do non-experts understand papers published in Physical Review Letters because of the great formatting?
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/06/2006 12:17:00 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.