I'm personally not convinced that this story represents the considered opinion of the Royal Society as a whole. The issue is challenging for the Royal Society, because like many scholarly societies they currently derive a large portion of their income from selling journals to institutional libraries. On the other hand, open access can provide faster, cheaper and more transparent submission, peer review, publication and dissemination than printed journals or closed electronic journals....[After quoting the Royal Society:] All their significant qualms appear to be about funding.
Stephen Downes quotes Yeates' comment in his own blog and adds this comment: "I'm sympathetic, though I caution, the purpose of academic publishing is not to keep organizations like the Royal Society afloat, much as they may feel otherwise."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/29/2005 10:36:00 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.
