Open Access : More on the US and UK proposals. Elsevier Faces More Choppy Water, Greenhouse Associates, August 2004. An unsigned news story. Excerpt: "Despite its recent concession granting authors limited rights to self-publish their articles that also appear in its journals, Elsevier's academic publishing business appears as endangered as ever. Committees of the British House of Commons and the US Congress recently released recommendations to set up free repositories for scientific research articles. These would become free alternatives to high-priced journals and repositories, such as Elsevier's Science Direct. Both government actions are big boosts for researchers and academic librarians, who have become vocal critics of the pricing policies of scientific journal publishers, especially Elsevier, which is the largest by far."

(PS: Both the US and UK proposals would make use of OA archives, not OA journals. OA archives are compatible with the survival of subscription-based journals. Moreover, Elsevier itself understands this compatibility and acted on it in May when it decided to permit postprint archiving. The heart of the US and UK proposals helps researchers without harming publishers. There are other provisions in the UK proposal that the stir the waters for Elsevier, such as price monitoring by the Office of Fair Trading. But OA archiving by itself should not be put in this category.) [Open Access News]

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Duke University Press expands into STM realm. A press release announces Duke University Press's foray into scientific publishing, mentioning that the publisher will add two science-oriented journals per year over a period of five years. Duke says they were encouraged by SPARC's Rick Johnson and their university librarian, David Ferriero, to undertake this venture, and that they and others "can play a key role in moving scientific and medical publishing back into the nonprofit sector, and thus help to counter the trend that has allowed certain large commercial publishers near-monopolistic control of the journals market, to the fiscal detriment of academic institutions.â�� (Source: Issues in Scholarly Communication - Georgia State University Library) [Open Access News]  3:38:05 PM   [Feedback ]