Eyes wide shut?

"Another statement made in these exchanges was that ‘open access is a solution looking for a problem’. This stopped me in my tracks, since over the last decade, evidence has been accumulating showing the high level of information imbalance and paucity, especially - but by no means only - in the developing world....Researchers, we had a problem. And there is now abundant proof that when publications are made available free of charge, full text downloads are very great indeed. As examples, recent usage of material from the institutional repository of the Universidad de los Andes (ULA), Venezuela, showed 1,404,423 full text downloads in 2009....Similarly, usage of journals published in developing countries, and made available through the Bioline International platform, shows full text downloads for 2009 of 4,403,047 (figures adjusted to eliminate web crawlers and robots), usage recorded from both developed and developing country users, making these previously non-OA near-invisible publications international in reach....The need for reform has long been accepted, but if there is anyone left that still feels there has been and remains no research communication problem it must be a case of ‘eyes wide shut and ears soundproofed’ (Ted Hughes). OA is a well-advanced solution to a well-known problem...."