Open Access continues to show amazingly strong growth, in every measure tracked, in the 3rd quarter of 2007. Highlights: more than 100,000 new authors contribute to the Scientific Commons; OAIster increased by more than 42% over the past year, and E-LIS by 53%. The DOAJ now has 2,846 titles, and the DOAJ net growth rate is 1.2 titles per calendar day. The Electronic Journals Library includes more than 15,000 free journals, an increase of more than 2,000 titles over the past quarter. Even Highwire Free - where many free journals are embargoed - is showing steady growth in fully free sites. With 40 recent open access mandate policies (32 in place, 8 in development) so far, the dramatic growth of open access is certain to continue. RePEC, Research Papers in Economics, quietly passed a significant milestone this quarter, with more than half a million records (a little under 400,000 are free online). Congratulations, RePEC! ...
Open Access Journals
The Directory of Open Access Journals...lists a total of 2,846 journals, 445 more journals today than a year ago, a net growth rate of 1.2 titles per calendar day over the past year. The larger Electronic Journals Library lists over 15,000 titles, more than 2,000 added in the last quarter. Note: it is not clear whether this many more journals became free or open during this period, or if this was the number of journals that was discovered in this time frame....
Open Access Archives
More than 100,000 new authors contributed to the Scientific Commons in this quarter, boosting the content of Scientific Commons by more than half a million items, to a current total of more than 16 million items. An OAIster search today encompasses close to 4 million items more than a year ago, a 42% increase in one year. E-LIS shows similarly strong growth, with an increase in content of more than 50% over last year, while the mature archives arXiv and RePEC continued with strong growth rates of 14% and 22% respectively. RePEC, Research Papers in Economics, quietly passed an important milestone, exceeding half a million records for the first time. Congratulations, RePEC! OPEN DOAR, the Directory of Open Access Archives, lists 950 archives, 41 more than in June 2007.
The strongest growth rates are shown by the institutions with open access mandates. Steven Harnad provides a summary and links to the data, along with the very important number of open access mandates: 40 (32 in place, 8 proposed), in his Success Rate of the Self-Archiving Mandates: Southamption ECS, on Open Access Archivangelism.
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.
