Sat, 22 Mar 2003 22:18:08 GMT

Steve Lawrence's paper online or invisible has bee …. Steve Lawrence's paper online or invisible has been referred to before in this blog. But its conclusion is so important that the paper is worth highlighting again:

“Articles freely available online are more highly cited. For greater impact and faster scientific progress, authors and publishers should aim to make research easy to access.”

His paper concludes:

“Free online availability facilitates access in multiple ways, including online archives, direct connections between scientists or research groups, hassle-free links from email, discussion groups, and other services, indexing by web search engines, and the creation of third-party search services. Free online availability of scientific literature offers substantial benefits to science and society. To maximize impact, minimize redundancy, and speed scientific progress, author and publishers should aim to make research easy to access.”

[FOS News]

In the March issue of Information Today, Dick Kase …. In the March issue of Information Today, Dick Kaser interviews Pieter Bolman about open-access initiatives. Bolman is vice-president and Director of STM Relations at Elsevier and former CEO of Pergamon and Academic Press. Kaser lobs some softballs, and Bolman hits them. A valuable window into what commercial publishers are thinking about the prospects of open access and how publishers have been misunderstood by researchers and librarians. [FOS News]

Two views – one from a 'proprietary' publisher and one who promotes open access. Which one will win? My view – The day of the $8000 yearly subscription business model is over and publishers will have to readjust to compete. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

I agree, subscription is dead, but given the fiscal support of universities and publishing through those universities, I don't think there is any other model out there that is sufficient. cost recovery is all there is or close things down.