[India's] premier science journal, Current Science, will, in all likelihood, soon bear on its cover the logo of the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), publishers of Nature magazine. The U.K.-based NPG and Current Science Association are set to get into a unique publishing partnership, the proposal for which is in the initial stages....
One of the “pre-requisites” the IAS [Indian Academy of Sciences] insisted upon for the future tie-up was that Current Science, which has open-source access online, must be allowed to retain it, said [G. Madhavan, executive secretary of the IAS]. The title links for the article will direct the user to the IAS server, where the full text can be viewed.
Nature does not normally allow open access for content on its website. In fact, much of the negotiations between the two publications revolved around this issue, and it appears that Current Science won its point.
“It is perhaps the first time that Nature will have on its site a journal that has an open access, even if on another site” said Mr. Madhavan....
Comments.
Congratulations to Current Science on preserving its OA status without derailing the negotiation (or preserving the negotiation without abdicating its OA status). This looks like a win-win.
Update. I asked Timo Hannay (Director of Web Publishing at Nature) whether I missed any of Nature's OA projects or experiments in my list above. He replied:
You certainly got most of our major open access projects. You could possibly have added:
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.
