Re: Open Access outside the U.S/U.K.

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

Thanks for your comments, Ann.

It may be of interest that Bioline International
http://www.bioline.org.br/ is a "not-for-profit electronic publishing
service committed to providing open access to quality research journals
published in developing countries" - description from their web site.

My topic is "OA outside the U.S./U.K.", so my focus is primarily outside
these two countries, although I am particularly interested in perspectives
from farther afield, e.g. outside of North America and Europe, since my
own background is North America / outside the U.S.

Perhaps a more specific example of what I'm thinking of in terms of early
journal cuts might help.

In the '70's, the height of the cold war, some of my professors at the
University of Alberta expressed concern about the serials cuts at the
time.  It was of particular concern that journals from Eastern bloc
countries were being cut, at a time when many people felt that
communications with these countries, particularly scientific exchange, was
really important, even though there were significant language barriers to
this communication.  I don't mean to fault the University of Alberta in
any way, nor am I certain about what was actually cut (if faculty members
were concerned about this, perhaps the cuts never happened?))  It is
understandable that journals that almost no one at the university in
question could make use of were being cut.  Naturally, at the time these
journals were in paper format, not electronic.

One of the options suggested by my professors was funding for translation.  
It's really hard to see how extra funding for this expensive service could
be found at a time of cutbacks.

Another option would be to encourage students in various disciplines to
learn a variety of languages, and to particularly encourage the study of
languages not spoken locally.  Would this not make sense in a global
world?  If this sounds unrealistic, consider the elementary school system
in Edmonton, Alberta.  Language immersion programs there are not limited
to the french immersion one would expect - the options include Arabic and
Chinese, among others.

ciao,

Heather Morrison


On 7-Sep-04, at 7:13 AM, Ann Okerson wrote:

> Heather, in your first message you asked about international journals as
> if titles ouside of one's home country, but is the question really about
> foreign language periodical titles and titles from third world nations,
> which would be mostly in foreign languages (foreign to English
> speakers)?
>
> Note that most of the developing nations countries are still not
> positioned to do electronic publishing and distribution for many reasons
> (technology, infrastructure, bandwidth, computers, skill sets present in
> country), so their publication in open access means is, for now, still a
> ways out.  Ann