Periodicals Price Survey 2008: Embracing Openness

http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6547086

Global initiatives and startling successes hint at the profound implications of open access on journal publishing

By Lee C. Van Orsdel & Kathleen Born — Library Journal, 4/15/2008

They have argued about it for years. It’s been touted as the liberator of information that wants to be free, the arbiter of shared intellectual property rights, and an engine that can drive discovery, invention, cures, and economies. It has also been vilified as an assault on capitalism, a catalyst for the collapse of responsible publishing and the rise of junk science, and a naïve invention of some pointy-headed idealists who have no idea how the real world works. “It,” of course, is open access (OA).

Evidence for open access as an emergent, global state of mind is everywhere. The New York Times went “open” last September, and the Wall Street Journal is slated to follow. Increasingly, scholarly communities are breaking with tradition and calling for the open sharing of research, software, and data. In amongst these global initiatives is the campaign to provide open access to the results of research that is funded with public dollars. That campaign has produced a series of startling successes in recent months, with potentially profound implications for the journal publishing industry.

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