Richard Wray, Open access publishers close ranks, The Guardian, March 9, 2004. On the testimony yesterday from PLoS and BMC before the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. Excerpt: "Two of the leading open access publishers of scientific journals yesterday mounted a spirited defence of their embryonic industry in the face of criticism from traditional publishers such as Reed Elsevier that it is uneconomic and risks debasing scientific research. Harold Varmus, president of the US-based Public Library of Science, told a committee of MPs last night: 'We want ... every poor student to be able to satisfy his learned curiosity just as a rich person does.' Branding the subscriptions of traditional publishers as 'intolerably high', he rejected criticism that open access - where publication is paid for by the author - will lead to vanity publishing as 'rubbish'. 'The most important thing is we want our journals to be high quality, that is the only way we are going to succeed.' "
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/09/2004 08:33:00 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.
