NYTimes Editorial on Open Access to Scientific Research

[ann.okerson@yale.edu]

Open Access to Scientific Research

August 7, 2003
 
A number of influential scientists have begun to argue that
the cost of research publications has grown so large that
it impedes the distribution of knowledge. Some
subscriptions cost thousands of dollars per year, and those
journals are usually available online only to subscribers.
This looks less like dissemination than restriction,
especially if it is measured against the potential access
offered by the Internet. That is why a coalition led by Dr.
Harold Varmus, the former director of the National
Institutes of Health, is creating a new model, called the
Public Library of Science. 

Several years ago Dr. Varmus's group issued an open letter,
signed by some 30,000 colleagues, calling on the publishers
of scientific journals to make their archived research
articles freely available online. Most journals declined,
so they would not undercut the profitable business of
selling expensive subscriptions to libraries. But there is
a basic inequity when much of the research has been
financed by public money. 

The Public Library of Science plans to confront that
inequity by establishing a new series of peer-reviewed
journals that will be freely available on the Internet. The
first ones, published this October, will be PLoS Biology
and PLoS Medicine. The aim is to create a freer flow of
data about research and results. The journals will pay for
themselves by charging a small fee to the organizations and
institutions that support the research. 

Most of us, admittedly, will not have much use for free
access to new discoveries in, say, particle physics. But it
is a different matter when it comes to medical research.
Popular nostrums abound on the Web, but it can be very
hard, if not impossible, to find the results of properly
vetted, taxpayer-financed science - and in some cases it
can be hard for your doctor to find them, too. The Public
Library of Science could help change all that, creating
open access to research. The publishers of scientific
journals are naturally skeptical, but the real test will
come in the marketplace of ideas. What will matter this
fall, when the new journals make their debut, is how many
scientists choose to publish in them rather than in the
journals traditionally deemed the most prestigious in their
disciplines. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/opinion/07THU3.html?
ex=1061268556&ei=1&en=39bd70b005a6260f

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company