Peter Suber, The primacy of authors in achieving open access, Nature, June 10, 2004. This is an abridged and slightly revised version of the article I wrote for SOAN for 6/2/04. Excerpt: "Of all the groups that want OA to scientific and scholarly research literature, only one is in a position to deliver it: authors. It is authors who decide whether to submit their work to OA journals, to deposit their work in OA archives, or to transfer copyright. If you support OA, then the good news is that authors do not need anyone else's permission or cooperation to provide OA to their own work. But the downside is that researchers are notoriously individualistic and as authors do not act as a bloc. If you oppose OA, then simply switch the good news and the bad." (PS: I'm not happy with the editing and recommend the "Director's cut" in SOAN.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/10/2004 12:53:00 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.
