Andrew Kirk, Library Struggles to afford journals, the University of Utah Daily Utah Chronicle, March 11, 2004. Excerpt: "About 25 years ago, academic societies began handing the publication of their journals over to commercial presses. The publishers then began steadily raising the prices of those journals. According to a coalition of academic libraries in Utah, many publishers have become monopolies, causing the prices to increase five times faster than the average rate of inflation over the past decade....Now, thanks to media attention the issue is receiving, researchers are working together with the library to oppose the monopolies....The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, which [Library director Sara] Michalak helped found, encourages competition in the communication market by sponsoring alternative forms of publishing, such as new journals.....Many researchers, especially in biomedical fields, participate in the alternative journals because they believe in broad access to information, she said."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/13/2004 11:25:00 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.
