Open Access : New issue of Open Access Now. The February 16 issue of Open Access Now is now online. This issue contains an interview with Richard Smith of BMJ, reflections from Hakan Leblebicioglu on editing an OA journal (Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials), and news stories on the WSIS call for OA and the conversion of the NIH journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, to OA. [Open Access News]  11:55:10 AM   [Feedback ]  

Open Access : Amplifying the call to boycott expensive journals. Christopher A. Reed, Just Say No to Exploitative Publishers of Science Journals, Chronicle of Hgher Education, February 20, 2004 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt: "It's time for universities, en masse, to take their cue from these smaller-scale insurrections and to just say no to extortionate journal-subscription costs and pay-for-view access to electronic versions of back issues. That will require boldness among administrators and librarians, along with some 'bribing' of faculty members to change their behavior....Researchers don't think too much about that as long as their institutions pay. They like electronic access because of its desktop convenience and superior search capabilities. What's more, they advance their careers with appointments to editorial boards, and that has effectively silenced the scientific leadership from speaking out against the proliferation of overpriced journals, many of them not of the highest quality. The journals market is dysfunctional. Researchers do all the work, give away the product, and express almost no buying preferences. They see journals being paid for out of someone else's budget....While such restructuring of the scientific-journal culture might seem drastic, our present course is fiscally unsustainable and unconducive to the best and most efficient research." (PS: Reed seems unaware of the open access movement.) [Open Access News]  11:54:44 AM   [Feedback ]