UK government accused of 'kowtowing' to industry in scientific publications debate, CORDIS News, November 9, 2004. An unsigned news story. Excerpt: "The UK Parliament's Select Committee on Science and Technology has castigated the government for what it describes as an 'unhealthy collusion' with the publishing industry in the debate over free access to scientific research results....In its original report, the committee of MPs recommended that the government should support the creation of a national system of institutional repositories, in which higher education institutes could store their published output and thus facilitate access to it. It also asked the government to investigate the impact of introducing an 'author-pays' model of scientific publication, whereby researchers or their funders pay to publish their results in a journal, which is then made freely accessible to all....On the question of institutional repositories, although the government 'recognises the potential benefits of institutional repositories and sees them as a significant development worthy of encouragement', it says that 'each institution has to make its own decision about institutional repositories depending on individual circumstances.' Yet MPs argue that: 'By abdicating responsibility for implementing institutional repositories at a national level, the government severely limits the benefits that such repositories can yield for access to scientific publications.'...The chair of the Select Committee, Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson, said: 'The government is just supporting the industry. There is a collusion going on somewhere which is unhealthy. The DTI is apparently more interested in kowtowing to the powerful publishing lobby than it is in looking after the best interests of British science. This isn't evidence-based policy, it's policy-based evidence.' "
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/09/2004 03:58:00 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.
