Abstract: Open access is defined, and explored in the context of enclosure and emancipatory communication. One attempt at enclosure, in the form of heavy lobbying by very wealthy companies in the publishing industry against research funders' open access mandates, has been exposed. A PR message is traced from the recommendations of PR pitbull Eric Dezenhall to a failed anti-OA coalition attempt called PRISM to the White House. In spite of this intense lobbying, open access is succeeding. Resources are growing dramatically; the Directory of Open Access Journals, a list of fully open access, peer-reviewed journals, lists more than 2,800 journals, more than 10% of the world's peer-reviewed journals, and is adding titles at a rate of more than one per calendar day. There are more than 16 million items in open access archives, retrievable through portals such as Scientific Commons or OAIster. Despite heavy lobbying, the US Senate recently voted heavily in favor of language to change the National Institutes of Health Public Access policy from an ineffective request to a requirement. There are now 40 research funding agencies' open access mandates either in place or under discussion.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/31/2007 09:50:00 AM.
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.
