Don't Let the Dream of Open Access Journals Die - Puneet Opal - The Atlantic

L. Rafael Reif, president of MIT, announced last week that he would release documents relating to Aaron Swartz, the gifted computer programmer who killed himself earlier this year. The 26-year-old was being prosecuted for downloading academic papers that MIT had licensed from the publishing company JSTOR when he killed himself. Swartz's punishment could have led to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines. Some have argued that prosecutorial threats along with his depression led to his eventual suicide. The details of his death in January were widely discussed, but with the new release of these MIT documents, it is likely that the events preceding his death will once more be in the news.  What should not be missed in this tragic story is the importance of the dissemination of academic knowledge that Swartz clearly understood ... Finally, it is the granting agencies -- many government-funded -- that ultimately support the research endeavor, paying for researchers' salaries, research supplies and equipment, and finally the costs of publication.  Given this model, you might think that accessing scientific publications would be inexpensive. But this is not the case. The publications themselves typically land in corporate-owned scientific journals that restrict access by hefty subscriptions that only major university libraries can afford. For instance, Northwestern University pays more than $7.5 million per year for electronic subscription of journals, with the price of a single journal yearly subscription well over $1,000.  Academics have been trying to address this issue of access since everyone would stand to benefit from the dissemination of their ideas. Timothy Gowers, a Fields Medal-winning mathematician, and a vocal advocate for open access, has in fact made a compelling case urging his fellow mathematicians to boycott publishers with the most exorbitant fee structure and to find ways to archive and disseminate information freely. Other academics are pushing for an increase in the number ofopen access journals that are typically online-only, thus sparing the costs of creating ink-on-paper versions of their manuscripts..."