Daniel Engber, British Government Refuses to Support Open-Access Approach to Scientific Publishing, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 10, 2004 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt: 'The British government has rejected most of the recommendations by a parliamentary committee that favors making the results of state-supported scientific research freely available....The government's response was coordinated by the Department of Trade and Industry, which one lawmaker accused of bowing to pressure from commercial publishers. "It's not worth the paper it's written on," Ian Gibson, chairman of the parliamentary committee, said of the response. "They're obviously kowtowing to the industry." The publishers welcomed the government's response. A spokesman for Reed Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of scientific journals, called it "a clear statement of support for the current market and the current system, which confirms that the publishing market is competitive and innovative." Mr. Gibson, a Labor Party member of Parliament, also contended that the government had ignored the recommendations of its own Joint Information System Committee, an advisory group, and had favored instead the arguments put forth by the Department of Trade and Industry....In a written statement, [Jan] Velterop [publisher of BioMed Central] called the government's response disappointing and surprising. "The government," he wrote, "seems to have reached conclusions very different from those reached by the scientific community." Even without official endorsement from the government, the councils that disburse public funds for research may elect to follow the parliamentary committee's suggestions. The research councils are in the process of reviewing their strategy and are expected to issue a plan in January.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/10/2004 11:03:00 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.
