Abstract: Society publishers are encouraged to view recent “Open Access” proposals as opportunities to expand access and balance subscription pricing with author contributions. This approach would hopefully avoid the difficulties inherent in the deposition and use of pre-publication manuscripts. Examples of reasonably priced society journals are presented along with comparison pricing of society and commercial journals. These examples suggest that society journals should be immune to cancellations, in contrast with the vulnerability of commercial journals.
But see the OA full-text, self-archived at Caltech. From the conclusion:
Instead of following the example of the [American Chemical Society's] alignment with commercial publishers, as evidenced by recent revelations of questionable public-relation efforts, society publishers will hopefully see the FRPAA & NIH Directive as an opportunity to develop a new business model. Namely, one that includes appropriate 'open-access' for archival material, balanced pricing between authors and readers, and expanded outreach to underserved research communities, thus insuring the long-term survival of their publications.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/03/2008 11:59:00 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.
