Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, March 22, 2007

Another way to remove access barriers

Andrew Mytelka, Dutch Scientist to Receive $200,000 Prize From Southern Cal, Chronicle of Higher Education news blog, March 22, 2007.  Excerpt:

The University of Southern California has awarded the 2007 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement to Gatze Lettinga, a Dutch scientist who invented an anaerobic wastewater treatment in the 1970s and who, by choosing not to patent his work, has strived to make it available all over the world. The technology is now used in three-quarters of the world’s anaerobic systems for treating industrial and residential wastewater....

PS:  Unlike Lettinga, scholars who provide OA to their peer-reviewed journal articles give up no actual or potential revenue.  The reason, of course, is that scholarly journals don't buy articles from authors and don't pay royalties.  Lettinga is heroic, but we should all be glad that OA doesn't require heroism.