["Content provider"] is a bad misnomer, getting things basically
backwards. What these publishers are doing is more accurately seen as offering
limited and potential access to attention....
Suppose a scholar refers to a book not
easily available to some readers. If the reference is at all important, those readers
cannot fully pay attention. No writing or speaking of any kind stands alone. All
attention-getting efforts fail without some sort of reference, implied or explicit, to
older efforts by others. Thus, having all earlier efforts as available as possible
would be a boon to present attention seekers. This is part of the advantage to all of
open-access scholarly and scientific journals and open-access libraries.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/11/2006 11:20:00 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.
