Executive Board Action on Open Access

"1. APS recognizes the importance of SCOAP3 in creating an early impetus toward Open Access.   2. APS has been committed to the merits of Open Access for two decades. To emphasize our long standing commitment, on November 8, 2009 the APS Council adopted a statement on Open Access: 'The APS supports the principles of Open Access to the maximum extent possible that allows the Society to maintain peer-reviewed high-quality journals, secure archiving, and the Society's long‑term financial stability, to the benefit of the scientific enterprise.'   To that end, APS   allows authors to post the version of record of their APS-published papers on their websites; provides free public access to all of its journals at US public and high school libraries; participates as a leading contributor to and proponent of INSPIRE; is a supporter, partner and proponent of arXiv.org; has initiated Open Access journals (e.g., PRST-AB and PRX). 3. Within the last year, the Open Access landscape has changed dramatically. APS is in high-level discussions to develop plans with other professional societies, publishers and U.S. government agencies to foster a sustainable approach to Open Access across all sciences.  4. Considering the above and in this broad global landscape, the APS Executive Board has voted not to participate as a publishing partner in SCOAP3   5. APS will continue to work with all stakeholders, including the scientific community, libraries, government agencies, and scientific publishers to achieve sustainable open access across the sciences."