Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, June 12, 2007

More on the launch of Open Medicine

Dean Giustini, Doing Medical Journals Differently: Open Medicine, UBC Academic Search - Google Scholar Blog, June 11, 2007.  Excerpt:

Here, some of my Open Medicine colleagues discuss the circumstances that led to the launch of the Journal, and its existence as an example of open access's contribution to academic freedom.

Willinsky J., Murray S., Kendall C., Palepu A. Doing Medical Journals Differently: Open Medicine, Open Access, and Academic Freedom. - Working paper.

Notable, quotable quotes:

1. "Open Medicine was born of an editorial interference incident in the field of medical publishing, a field which is distinguished by its own professional and commercial influences." (You can say that again. DG)

2. "For all of the attention spent on finding the perfect economic model for increasing access to knowledge, it is important not to lose sight of scholarly communication’s other basic principles, beyond dissemination, namely editorial independence, intellectual integrity, and academic freedom." (What models will survive?) ...

4. ..."opening science to a larger world has always been a motivating force in scholarly publishing, [but] this openness is not just a matter of journals. Today, it includes initiatives focused on open data, open source biology, open encyclopedias, and a number of different “open science” projects." (Don't forget open search.)

5. "Open Medicine has raised the stakes for open access by demonstrating how this new approach can be used today to reassert editorial independence, intellectual integrity, and academic freedom." (And raised the stakes for librarians, I say.)