The Ontarion - Call to Derestrict Access to Academic Journals

abernard102@gmail.com 2013-11-02

Summary:

" ... To promote interest in this burgeoning concept, and to coincide with World Open Access week, McLaughlin Library hosted its first Open Access Week Colloquium on Oct. 25 in the Arboretum Centre. Academics, students and librarians from around campus and around the province attended this all-day conference to discuss opportunities for open access publishing and awareness. Understandably, the fiscal challenges posed by an open access regime were the most pressing concerns. It is true that historically, publishing was a costly business to be in – I n some respects, it still can be. But with the advent of digitization, academic publishers are no longer obliged to physically print and distribute each volume of each journal to their customers. What is more, research indicates that journal prices have outpaced inflation by over 250 per cent over the past 30 years. In chemistry, the average price for one journal for one year is now a whopping $4,227 – and journals don’t even have to pay academics for peer reviews. For critics of the existing system, these are signs that publishers and the scientific community must get with the times. Open access, they say, is the future ... The library estimates that the University of Guelph already has over 400 open access authors on campus, and graduate students are often encouraged to post their research online for free. Still, many academics are attracted to the idea of having their article in a high-profile journal, both for the intellectual cachet it brings, as well as the guaranteed readership. This demand helps keep the publishers in business ..."

Link:

http://www.theontarion.com/2013/10/call-to-derestrict-access-to-academic-journals/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.comment oa.advocacy oa.libraries oa.events oa.librarians oa.oa_week oa.u.guelph

Date tagged:

11/02/2013, 08:09

Date published:

11/02/2013, 04:09