Open Access and the Progress of Science » American Scientist

"For the past decade or so, a number of scientists have argued that the World Wide Web offers a way to unlock the gates that was not possible when scientific results were conveyed solely by print-on-paper. Advocates of "open access" argue that research results must be made available such that all scientists can see them and use them, for free, via the Web.

Other arguments in favor of open access come from different perspectives. Early calls for publishing reform cited rapid rises in the cost of journals and the ensuing "serials crisis," wherein libraries have been forced into repeated rounds of subscription cancellations. Others focused on the plight of developing-world scientists and their difficulty in accessing journals (at all, in some cases). Commercial and scholarly-society publishers responded with initiatives that addressed these issues in specific ways, while sticking largely to the subscription-based "toll gate" models of literature access that have been dominant during the growth of international science publishing."