George Porter, Commentary: The Crisis In Scholary Communication, the (sci-tech) Library Question, May 14, 2004. Porter remarks that the scholarly communication crisis is now in its third decade, pointing to Henry Barschal's controversial journal pricing studies (which, he writes, have been compiled by Yale and Stanford.) "Library-publisher dynamics have not changed greatly in the intervening years, but the broader awareness and concern with the topic has undergone a sea change in the last few years," Porter comments. Among the pivotal points, he notes, are open access publishing efforts such as PLoS and BioMed Central and the launch of new, less expensive, society journals in competition with established commercial journals (e.g. Journal of Algorithms.) Porter also cites the Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) of the International Mathematical Union's "best practices," which offer guidelines to librarians, scientists and publishers with respect to policies on subscription, pricing and archiving, among other criteria. Lastly, the author lists a number of comparative journal economic studies from recent years.
Posted by
Garrett at 5/17/2004 09:49:00 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.
