Via Peter Suber's Open Access News. This argument for open access to scholarly articles by Robert Darnton appeared in the Harvard Crimson. The upcoming vote on this question by the Harvard faculty (and, soon by the University of California system) will carry great weight, perhaps equal to the MIT faculty's endorsement of the OpenCourseWare movement. ____JH
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Robert Darnton, The Case for Open Access, Harvard Crimson, February 12, 2008. Darnton is the Director of the Harvard University Library. Excerpts:
The motion before the FAS [Faculty of Arts and Sciences] in support of open access to scholarly articles concerns openness in general. It is meant to promote the free communication of knowledge. By retaining rights for the widest possible dissemination of the faculty’s work, it would make scholarship by members of the FAS freely accessible everywhere in the world, and it would reinforce a new effort by Harvard to share its intellectual wealth....
The implementation of the proposal would require an effort at consciousness-raising, but that, too, is a good cause, because few faculty members understand how badly current conditions impede the communication of knowledge. The motion gives Harvard the possibility of setting an example that could spread. In place of a closed, privileged, and costly system, it will help open up the world of learning to everyone who wants to learn—and also to contribute to learning, because the Office for Scholarly Communication could point the way toward a digital commonwealth, in which ideas would flow freely in all directions. Harvard’s motion represents only one step toward this goal. But it shows how the new technology can make it possible to realize an old ideal, a republic of letters in which citizenship extends to everyone.
Update. Also see Patricia Cohen's story on the Harvard policy in today's New York Times.
4:48:08 PM 
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