From Inside Higher Ed

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

A squib from "Inside Higher Ed""  "Academics remain reluctant to 
allow their journal articles to be deposited in open-access 
repositories, according to the Oxford University Press. The press 
announced Thursday that the percentage of Oxford Press articles 
authorized for re-publication in its open-access repository 
decreased overall from 6.7 to 5.9 percent between 2008 and 2009. 
Officials attributed the decrease to a relatively low rate of 
opt-ins from 11 new journals to which the option was extended in 
2009; putting those new titles aside, the proportion of authors 
allowing their work to be made freely available stayed roughly 
the same. Still, the stagnation of that rate indicates that 
researchers are still wary of endorsing an open-access model, 
Oxford officials said in a release. Humanities scholars were the 
least willing to participate in Oxford Open, the press's 
open-access initiative, opting in at a rate of 2.5 percent. Life 
sciences scholars were the most generous with their work, with 
11.4 percent allowing their papers to be freely accessible."

-- Joe Esposito