Re: Open Access Initiative From The Company Of Biologists

[Phil Davis <pmd8@cornell.edu>]

As an additional point of discussion, CoB (along with many societies
publishing through HighWire Press) allows open access to all articles
after one year.  Other societies allow open access after as little as 3
months (see: http://www.highwire.org/lists/freeart.dtl)

I think the relevant question in this situation is:  What is the
value/incentive to the author of paying to publish in a journal only to
have free access become default after a short period of time?

An experiment such as this would be much more relevant for commercial
publishers who typically provide no free access whatsoever after any
period of time.  The crisis in access to scientific information is not the
cause of the societies.  It is paradoxical that it is this group who is
the first to come up with creative (and potentially self-destructive)
solutions.

Respectively submitted
--Phil Davis


At 07:07 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> Re. Company of Biologists, David Goodman wrote:
> > Although all such experiments are most welcome, I am still considering
> > the implications of a journal some of whose articles are freely
> > accessible and some of whose are not. It will be interesting to observe
> > the proportion.
>
> Yes, it is interesting.  It strikes me that in a sense this is the worst
> of both worlds.  I still have to pay to subscribe to these journals to
> provide complete access, but my faculty may in addition be paying to
> publish in them, if they are so minded.  Will the subscription prices be
> reduced at some point to reflect the number of free articles?
>
> Frank Norman, Librarian. National Institute for Medical Research
> The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA,  UK
> tel 020 8816 2227   fax 020 8816 2230   email fnorman@nimr.mrc.ac.uk