I have been paying attention to the ongoing discussion on open access to scientific research in the news media and have collected a number of interesting articles. Here I will keep a record of a few interesting ones
2012-11-08 From the Guardian: “Open Access: ‘we no longer need expensive publishing networks‘”
2012-06-19 From the New Scientist: “Set science free from publishers’ paywalls”
2012-04-17 From the Harvard Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing: “Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot Be Sustained”
I once wrote about the difficulty in getting access to the research papers here and I had to ask my friends from my home country to download that for me. The expensive journal subscription is obviously one reason that caused the problem. Obviously publishing in high-quality, open access journals with publisher like PLOS and BMC can be a good solution. However for many practical reasons, i.e. to survive and be recognized, scientists often do not act what they advocate is good. Let’s hope the field can wise up and treasure what is actually important to us.