David Prosser, The view from Europe: Creating international change, College & Research Libraries News, May 2004. On recent European steps toward OA, including the UK inquiry, the BOAI, the Berlin Declaration, the several Wellcome Trust contributions, and the DOAJ. Excerpt: "Any attempt to fundamentally change a well-embedded system with such large degrees of inertia as those of scholarly communication will be difficult. These difficulties are compounded by the worldwide, international nature of the problem, which makes consensus and coordination difficult. However we are seeing growing acceptance of open access by researchers as they deposit their work in repositories, publish in open access journals, and read their colleagues’ work in these journals. Librarians are seeing the benefits of open access, and they are increasingly taking on the role of host for their institutions’ repositories. Funding bodies and politicians are waking up to the inefficiencies of the old subscription-based system and are looking critically at new models. This combination of high-level and grassroots desire for change will enable us to overcome the inertia in the system and the difficulties of working in a diverse and multicultured environment." David Prosser is the Director of SPARC Europe.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/16/2004 10:59:00 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.
