Open-Access Journals

The current system of scholarly communication is in need of major changes. Journal price increases have been so dramatic and devastating that faculty who typically don't know or care about library expenditures are now front and center in the battle to change the dominant paradigm. Simply put, this model is: faculty and researchers at universities, many of which are public institutions, create most scientific and academic journal literature. Faculty typically publish articles with commercial publishers for no compensation (in many cases they even pay to publish). Once published, the research and scholarship of their faculty are licensed by libraries from the commercial publishers, often at top dollar.

http://libraryjournal.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA325079&publication=libraryjournal
(Library Journal 10/15/2003)

For example, the libraries of the University of California (UC) system collectively spend 50 cents per second on journals from the top four science, technology, and medical journal publishers, or $79 per student per year. Did the commercial publisher add value? Sure, in most cases. Is that value worth the cost? Increasingly, faculty, librarians, and others say no.

Posted by Tom on October 29, 2003