Friday, September 08, 2006

Inside Higher Ed :: Momentum for Open Access Research

So who is truly against open access publishing? The scholarly societies have been opposing open access to academic content, but as this article notes, the provosts of 25 research universities came out in favor of open access.
And why not? As they cite the "current system of research publishing leads to outrageously high journal costs that are harming libraries and making it impossible for people to follow research." Making reserach free and accessible shouldn't be such an argumentative issue. Research is paid for through public dollars, why should the public have to pay again for access to the findings? Or to put a finer point on it, isn't the expectation of research to share it with as wide an audience as possible? Information wants to be free.

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