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Momentum grows for Open Access

13.02.07

Momentum is growing for publicly funded published academic research to be available free on the internet, reports the Guardian. So-called "open access" would mean anyone could view an article in a scholarly journal shortly after it was published. "Most academic publishers are not pleased. This would sharply cut their subscriptions, the 'customers who pay a year in advance'. Some even fear it could make them bankrupt."

This week publishers, researchers and research funders from across Europe will debate the issue in Brussels at a conference hosted by the European commission. "We are at tipping point," Peter Burnhill, director of a national data centre that serves UK universities and colleges, tells the newspaper. "There is a movement towards open access and this conference, 'Scientific publishing in the European research area', might make the difference."

But traditional journal publishers argue that open access would trigger a dramatic drop in subscriptions, especially for subject-specific journals published by learned societies such as the London Mathematical Society. They say the societies, which rely on revenues from journals, could collapse in the long-term and haemorrhage readers in the short-term.

Guardian

publishers stm Open Access Journals

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