Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Saturday, April 21, 2007

More on the unmet demand for access in India

Abhishek, Towards Open Access For Scientific Research, Descritics, April 20, 2007.  Excerpt:

...I shall only deal with the problems in accessing scientific journals in a developing country like India. For long, the basic research has been concentrated in the U.S. or Europe....

It is interesting to note that most...journals of repute...remain the exclusive preserve of the rich universities abroad. They...often price their products beyond the purchasing power of the individuals in the developing countries by setting up prohibitively expensive access controls.

The Open Access movement wanted to change all that....

The importance of being updated [on new research] cannot be under estimated. Yet, I find it odd that the journals allow for [embargoed] access to the articles after six months, or for some, after years; what relevance would it hold at a later stage? The crying need is to make all access free and fair, irrespective of the country where the person is accessing the articles from....