Information Research Weblog

As all members of the IR-DISCUSS list are aware, Information Research is an 'open access' journal, that is, it is freely available without charge to all. Unusually in the open access world, it is also free to authors - no author- funding is required to be published. One would imagine that universities would be running to sponsor the journal, but the silence is deafening :-)

The open access movement has had a number of boosts in recent days and these are recorded in the latest SPARC Newsletter. Among other things, it reports from the financial analyst firm, BNP Paribas, on the threat to commercial publishers (specifically Elsevier) of the open access trend. For example:

"Open-access could prove a more cost-effective scientific communication system for universities and research institutions. We estimate that the global scientific research community could save more than 40% in costs by switching entirely to an open-access model. We have reached this figure by comparing current annual spending on scientific journals at Cornell, Yale, and Princeton universities with estimated spending under open-access. Assuming current published article numbers of 3,900, 3,600 and 2,500 respectively, we estimate the corresponding cost savings at 20%, 35% and 40%."

"Following the sharp increase in STM journal prices in recent years, the subscription-based model limits access to scientific information. Only the cash- rich libraries can afford to carry truly comprehensive serial collections. By giving libraries free access to scientific content, open-access comes closer to the nature of scientific output as a public product."

"Open-access increases the chances of authors having their work read and cited by expanding the potential reader base, and in this sense can support and promote the authors. Open-access has the potential to improve communication among scientists, as well as among the research community and the general public (among consumer groups, lawyers and individuals)."