[A library patron]...requested...a paper published in Resonance in 1999. I had all the resources at my disposal to get it instantly. First, the journal was open access and the publisher, Indian Academy of Sciences (IASc), Bangalore had digitized back volumes and made them available on-line....I quickly browsed to the particular issue of the journal on the IASc website. To my disappointment the journal article was not linked to the table of contents.
My second source was Google. I searched and found the paper in SpringerLink!...When I tried downloading the full article, [Springer] directed me to a shopping cart. Why should I pay for an open access journal article?
It came to my mind that my employer had paid access to SpringerLink....I logged in and found the article. But as we did not subscribe to the journal, we did not have access to the full text. We would still have to pay for it....
Eventually, I did find the paper though a Google search, in the Archives of IASc....
[Why was this so difficult?] Is not the aim of open access to make available content freely to the reader? If so, why are we placing our open access journals behind the walls of a commercial publisher? (Incidentally, the SpringerLink page ranked higher in the search results of Google than IASc archive page.) Why is the information that a journal is open access not visible somewhere on the commercial aggregator’s site? (If I did not have prior knowledge that Resonance is an open access journal, I cannot know this while viewing the page on SpringerLink.) If getting a higher readership by offering it through a commercial aggregator’s site is the purpose, are there not other ways to do it? ...
In my view, the open access movement in India should primarily focus in these two directions....
(i) Policy decisions from academic and government bodies: Advocates of the open access policy mention two important areas that need to be addressed. First, research funded by public grants should be made publicly accessible. Second, grants themselves should accommodate the ‘author-pays’ model whenever required.
(ii) Technology implementation: Open access is a reality today only because the technology is available to make it happen. Given this fact, implementation of the necessary technology infrastructure should become a priority. There is no dearth of trained manpower in India to make it happen....(a) Institutional repositories: We need to develop and encourage institutional repositories at every research organization....(b) Open access journals: We need to publish Indian journals using tools that expose metadata with the OAI–PMH protocol. This is a method to get better readership and automated dissemination across many platforms like OAIster, and better visibility....
We need [OA] implementers and we need them fast! Otherwise our journals will be gobbled up quietly by those with commercial interests...[which will] maximize profits rather than scholarly communication....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/24/2008 05:45:00 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.
