Nature Web Focus: Access to the literature: the debate continuesThe Internet is profoundly changing how scientists work and publish. New business models are being tested by publishers, including open access, in which the author pays and content is free to the user. This ongoing web focus will explore current trends and future possibilities. Each week, the website will publish specially commissioned insights and analysis from leading scientists, librarians, publishers and other stakeholders, as well as key links, and articles from our archive. All content is.Why electronic publishing means people will pay different prices- March 25, 2004 The open access movement may be the most prominent aspect of the profound ongoing evolution of scholarly communication, but it is far from the only one. Electronics is loosening the straitjacket of print, but only slowly. Technologies take time to become widely adopted, and sociological change even longer. Most journals are already available electronically, for example, but they remain largely facsimiles of their print cousins, and pre-publication evaluation procedures are much as before. Where.http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/7.html Open access and learned societies- March 25, 2004 Open Access has been acclaimed by many as the business model which will transform the scholarly publishing marketplace, rescuing libraries and academics from the 'evils' of commercial publishers. At present, most academic societies' publishing operations use the same business models as those commercial publishers. So will open access bring these learned societies real benefits or will it cause them financial hardshiphttp://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/8.html Science editor-in-chief warns of PLoS growing pains- March 19, 2004 For more than a century and a half, groups of scientists have formed organizations and started journals for the primary purpose of presenting the results of their work to one another and to a larger community of interested readers. That's why the journal Science was established in 1880, and why the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has sponsored it. That's also why a group of distinguished biomedical scientists, including several of our Stanford colleagues,...http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/6.html Open access and not-for-profit publishers- March 19, 2004 It is no accident that much experimentation with the Open Access journals model, where costs are covered by payments made on behalf of the author rather than on behalf of the reader, is being carried out by learned societies and other not-for-profit publishers. Their charitable status and the reason they are therefore exempt from paying taxes stems from their mission to develop and support their discipline, through research, dissemination and public education. Clearly, providing free access to..http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/2.html PLoS co-founder defends free dissemination of peer-reviewed journals online- March 19, 2004 Last year, Harold Varmus, Michael Eisen and I founded a new nonprofit scientific publisher, the Public Library of Science (PLoS; http:www.plos.org). In October, PLoS began publishing its premier scientific journal, PLoS Biology. Everything PLoS publishes is immediately available online, free of charge, with no restrictions on access or use.http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/5.html Open Access: yes, no, maybe- March 19, 2004 Last month, Paul Saffo research director of the Institute of the Future in Menlo Park, California, told the board of the Copyright Clearance Center, at a meeting in Naples, Florida, that we were living in a period of 'unprecedented uncertainty'. I cannot imagine a more apt description.http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/3.html Universities' own electronic repositories yet to impact on Open Access- March 19, 2004 More and more academic institutions are creating their own digital repositories, but a recent survey I carried out suggests they have had little effect on publishing practices so far.http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/4.html Introduction- March 19, 2004 The topic of this Nature web focus, the future of access to the scientific literature, is the subject of lively debate among librarians, publishers, learned societies, and scientists. Much of the debate is about whether the literature should be 'open access,' and if so, how the costs of publishing should be met, and by whom.http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/1.html |