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Open Access Publishingopen access publishing is a subject of considerable debate in scientific and academic library circles. Simply put, it refers to journals that make their articles freely available so anyone with an Internet connection can read, download, print, copy, redistribute, or use the information in derivative works such as databases, textbooks or other educational materials. Generally, open access publications are also deposited to an archival public repository to facilitate retrieval. 
The Open Access movement evolved as an alternative to the sharply rising costs of journals published by com-mercial publishers. Instead of charging libraries and indi-vidual subscribers for access to electronic publications, open access journals offset their costs by charging authors a set fee, generally around $1,500, to publish an article. Authors may elect to retain copyright, or assign it to the journal or to their institution. This protects the integrity of their work, and ensures that the work is referenced accurately whenever all or part of it is reproduced. Authors also agree to allow free and unrestricted non-commercial use of their work by others. Some publishers have a hybrid model, wherein content is available by subscription only for a limited time period of, say, six to 24 months, after which it becomes freely available to all. The Public Library of Science (PloS) <www.plos.org>, funded by a $9 million grant from the Moore Foundation, is one of the better-known experiments in open access publishing. Its goal is to develop high-quality open access peer-reviewed journals, and to work cooperatively with other groups and scientific societies interested in this model. PloS Biology was launched in October 2003, with PloS Medicine to follow later this year. They seek to publish papers that provide significant advances in their respective fields, and are run as a collaborative effort between academic editors who are experts in their field, and full-time professional editors. All PloS journal articles will beavailable on their own journal sites, as well as deposited in PubMed Central <www.pubmedcentral.org>, the National Library of Medicine’s digital archive of life sciences journal literature. Few, except commercial publishers, would disagree with the concept of making scientific information freely available to all, but whether this alternate economic model can succeed is still in question. The financial impact of such a model on large research centers, such as the University of Pittsburgh, whose faculty publish thousands of articles each year, is also unknown. What is clear is that the benefits and drawbacks of the open access model will be debated well into the future. To learn more about this topic, check the following sources: Guterman, Lila. "The Promise and Peril of Open Access," Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 30, 2004, Vol. 50 Issue 21, pA10. Nature Web Focus: Access to the Literature: the debate continues <www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/>. Medical Library Association. MLA Statement on Open Access, October 2003 <www.mlanet.org/government/info_access/openaccess_statement.html>. SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) <www.arl.org/sparc>. --Barbara Epstein Photograph Copyright © 2004 HSLS and it licensors. All rights reserved. |
