[Ecommerce] Open Access to Scientific Research: Public Library of Science

[Joy Spencer]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/opinion/07THU3.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=

New York Times
August 7, 2003
Open Access to Scientific Research

A number of influential scientists have begun to argue that the cost of 
research publications has grown so large that it impedes the 
distribution of knowledge. Some subscriptions cost thousands of dollars 
per year, and those journals are usually available online only to 
subscribers. This looks less like dissemination than restriction, 
especially if it is measured against the potential access offered by the 
Internet. That is why a coalition led by Dr. Harold Varmus, the former 
director of the National Institutes of Health, is creating a new model, 
called the Public Library of Science.

Several years ago Dr. Varmus's group issued an open letter, signed by 
some 30,000 colleagues, calling on the publishers of scientific journals 
to make their archived research articles freely available online. Most 
journals declined, so they would not undercut the profitable business of 
selling expensive subscriptions to libraries. But there is a basic 
inequity when much of the research has been financed by public money.

The Public Library of Science plans to confront that inequity by 
establishing a new series of peer-reviewed journals that will be freely 
available on the Internet. The first ones, published this October, will 
be PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine. The aim is to create a freer flow of 
data about research and results. The journals will pay for themselves by 
charging a small fee to the organizations and institutions that support 
the research.

Most of us, admittedly, will not have much use for free access to new 
discoveries in, say, particle physics. But it is a different matter when 
it comes to medical research. Popular nostrums abound on the Web, but it 
can be very hard, if not impossible, to find the results of properly 
vetted, taxpayer-financed science and in some cases it can be hard for 
your doctor to find them, too. The Public Library of Science could help 
change all that, creating open access to research. The publishers of 
scientific journals are naturally skeptical, but the real test will come 
in the marketplace of ideas. What will matter this fall, when the new 
journals make their debut, is how many scientists choose to publish in 
them rather than in the journals traditionally deemed the most 
prestigious in their disciplines.

-- 
Joy Spencer

Consumer Project on Technology
1.202.387.8030 (p)
1.202.234.5176 (f)
joy.spencer@cptech.org