Royal Historical Society -- Letter from the President: Open Access Publishing
abernard102@gmail.com 2013-01-16
Summary:
Use the link to access the full text document opening as follows: "Colin Jones’s Presidential Newsletter to the Society’s membership in November 2012 drew attention to the scale of changes to academic practice and publication involved in implementing the government’s decision to accept the main proposals of the Finch Report on Open Access publishing. His message highlighted the looming dangers to peer review, academic freedom, the activities and charitable functions of learned societies, and the international standing (and in some cases the continued
existence) of Britain’s scholarly journals. These dangers were all the more worrying in that implementation was being rushed through on the basis of insufficient consultation. Two months later, and as OA policy starts to be rolled out, our concern remains that the risks are still very real and very substantial. It goes without saying that many of us sympathise with the principles of open access (for most of us have been affected by ‘paywalls’ protecting research findings, and realize that these paywalls exclude entirely people outside of academic institutions), and we all hope that academic publishing is moving towards greater and freer access. The world of access will doubtless look very different in 10, and possibly in even 5 years’ time. Our problems are, however, with proposals which, on the basis of insufficient consultation, are seeking to rush in forms of OA which we believe could be severely damaging in the short and in the long term..."