Open Access Developments in Latin America: major initiatives and the case of SciELO | Abierto al público

 "What is known as 'Open Access' today began very early on in Latin America with SciELO, driven in large part by the emergence of the Internet and the desire by researchers and educators in Latin American to have their intellectual outputs gain higher visibility, mainly in the international communities and with the public in general, and to democratize the access to their research results in scientific publications. The open access philosophy came to represent a beneficial model for researchers and publishers, because it granted free access for the wider public and gave greater visibility to their articles. The model evolved gradually until it was eventually coined in the Budapest Open Access Initiative, when it was formally called 'Open Access' ... The two main initiatives hosting academic journals and books in electronic format,SciELO and RedALyC, provide access to almost 1,300 journals and more than 750,000 peer-reviewed articles. This has increased the visibility of the region’s scientific production, something which did not occur in the past, and thus having a greater impact ..."