Elsevier Faces More Choppy Water, Greenhouse Associates, August 2004. An unsigned news story. Excerpt: "Despite its recent concession granting authors limited rights to self-publish their articles that also appear in its journals, Elsevier's academic publishing business appears as endangered as ever. Committees of the British House of Commons and the US Congress recently released recommendations to set up free repositories for scientific research articles. These would become free alternatives to high-priced journals and repositories, such as Elsevier's Science Direct. Both government actions are big boosts for researchers and academic librarians, who have become vocal critics of the pricing policies of scientific journal publishers, especially Elsevier, which is the largest by far."
(PS: Both the US and UK proposals would make use of OA archives, not OA journals. OA archives are compatible with the survival of subscription-based journals. Moreover, Elsevier itself understands this compatibility and acted on it in May when it decided to permit postprint archiving. The heart of the US and UK proposals helps researchers without harming publishers. There are other provisions in the UK proposal that the stir the waters for Elsevier, such as price monitoring by the Office of Fair Trading. But OA archiving by itself should not be put in this category.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/24/2004 06:14:00 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.
