Individual scientists [web sites?] or their respective institutional departments were second to peer-reviewed journals as a reported means of publishing (13 percent of respondents); in contrast, only 1 percent of respondents reported using freely-accessible archives to publish their work [without also publishing them in peer-reviewed journals?]....
Almost two-thirds (63 percent) of respondents reported that their most recent publications were placed in an electronic bibliographic service or index; among those respondents, just over half (54 percent) had their publication deposited into a national/governmental library, and 19 percent of those respondents had their publication placed in a freely-accessible archive.
Over half (60 percent) of the survey respondents indicated that difficulties associated with accessing or disseminating copyrighted materials did not affect the conduct of their scientific work; just under one-third (29 percent) reported having been affected by such difficulties.
Among those who reported that their work had been affected by difficulties in accessing copyrighted scientific literature, the most frequently-reported responses were that their research was delayed by less than one month (42 percent), or by one month or longer (21 percent ).
The majority of survey respondents (58 percent) believed that access to most scientific literature had become easier over the past three years; a considerably smaller number reported that it has become “more difficult” or “much more difficult” (9 percent and 2 percent, respectively.)
The majority of respondents reported not having used alternative, open access (OA) licensing models to publish their most recent work: less than 10 percent reported having done so.
About five times as many respondents from academia published through OA models than respondents from industry; 10 percent of academic respondents reported using OA models, versus 2 percent of industry respondents.
Almost three-fourths of respondents, however, reported having referenced OA publications more frequently or about as much as they had (at the time of taking the survey) before three years ago....
Among those respondents who reported having difficulties in using data from a publicly funded source, the two most highly-cited problems were a substantial delay in the transfer of data, and that access to data was denied (by 44 percent and 39 percent of respondents, respectively); 59 percent of those respondents who reported the types of difficulties encountered represented the life sciences field....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/20/2007 02:32:00 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.
