Tony Delamothe, 'Author pays' model raises hope of freely available research, Financial Times, May 29, 2004. A letter to the editor in response to Arie Jongejan's anti-OA article published on Wednesday. Excerpt: "From a company making margins of 34 per cent from publishing scientific research, Elsevier's Arie Jongejan understandably cannot resist the temptations of the status quo. But those of us who are less conflicted applaud Wellcome Trust's endorsement of the 'author pays' business model for underwriting the costs of scientific publishing, and its illuminating analyses of the peculiar economics of this market." (PS: In fairness, "author pays" is a misleading way to describe this business model, whether the phrase is used by friends or foes. In most cases the fee will be paid by the author's research grant or be waived. Many OA journals charge no processing fee at all.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/29/2004 09:36:00 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.
