Paul Revere, Open Access, Open Sesame, November 30, 2004. A pseudonymous blog posting. Excerpt: 'The whole point of publishing a blog is for others to see it. For that they need open access to it. You would think that would be the whole point about science, too: Open Access. Unfortunately that is not how scientific publishing has worked until recently. Even now the vast majority of scientific papers aren't accessible unless you have priviliges at a library that carries the journal or you have a subscription. That is beginning to change and this post is to alert readers to an extremely significant trend in scientific publishing. In the interests of full disclosure, I am a co-Editor-in-Chief of an Open Access journal. I don't make a penny from it although the publisher does (more on the publisher's business model, below). I spend a lot of time and effort arranging for peer-review, counseling authors and doing all the other things good editors do because I believe strongly in the principle that good and reliable science should be available without charge to any one on this planet (and in this case, has an internet connection and a browser). This is especially true for the majority of work in this country supported by tax-payer's money through NIH.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/01/2004 10:38:00 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.
