Although researchers were making continuing, and perhaps increasing, use of library services, they said that they rarely visited libraries any longer. Instead, they were using the electronic search capabilities and database subscriptions that their university libraries provide to find relevant literature. Researchers consequently were doing more targeted searching using key words, which has enabled them to access a broader range of directly relevant literature more efficiently....They also noted that older literature, when it is not covered in the electronic databases, effectively becomes inaccessible. Many researchers noted that the Internet has made the literature more accessible to them and increased their productivity as a result....
Researchers in physics, mathematics, astronomy, computer sciences, and related disciplines reported that for access to the latest research findings, they relied on ArXiv, an unrefereed online compendium of manuscripts in their fields.
Although a journal's prestige is largely a product of the perceived quality and selectivity of its peer review process, accessibility also plays a role. Several researchers said they preferred to submit to journals that published readily accessible electronic versions, since this increased the chance that others would see their work. They viewed electronic versions that were available only long after paper publication or to subscribers who pay high fees as less desirable....
The study team heard numerous complaints about commercial publishers and spoke with some proponents of open-access publishing, in which the author (or the funding agency that sponsored the author's research) pays the cost of publication. Study informants gave considerable evidence that the business model for scientific publication is in flux, but almost no evidence that recent developments had generally changed whether or when researchers chose to publish their work in journals....
Electronically accessible international databases, software, and similar tools have enabled well-trained researchers to do better work even when they were not located in the best universities....
Advances in communication have made the international scientific literature more accessible to researchers in other countries....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/19/2007 02:39:00 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.
