Editorial: UC open access fight exposes publishing ripoff

"The scholarly research publishing industry is a rip-off that hinders scientific advances and piles unnecessary costs onto taxpayers who already fund much of the academic work.

It’s ridiculous that, in this age of the internet, researchers are paying huge fees for access to academic papers and for publication of their own work. That made sense in the days when scholarly works were printed in bound volumes. Today, academic work, especially public- and foundation-funded research, should be open for all. It shouldn’t cost $35 to $40 for each article, effectively freezing out those without the means to pay.

That’s why the University of California’s decision, announced Monday, to end its subscription deal with the world’s largest publisher of scientific journals, Reed Elsevier, is so monumental. UC is the nation’s first major university system to insist on open-access publishing, which makes research publications freely available to anyone in the world.

It’s about time. The lack of open access in the scientific community, which relies heavily on shared knowledge to solve the world’s most vexing problems, is appalling. Don’t blame the scientists. They don’t like the current system.  It’s time for other universities to get behind the push for an alternative approach that ensures anyone can read scientific publications...."