[Taxacom] Fwd: Fwd: open access

[Lorna Mitchell]

Hello,

I'm just a librarian and so feel free to ignore this but it might be worth mentioning that cost only really becomes an issue with open access if you focus on what's known as Gold open access, i.e. paying a fee to make an article in a journal freely available to readers; Green open access, where the article is made available via an institutional or subject-based repository is basically free.  

Most universities and many research institutes have now got or are looking at setting up repositories and many publishers will allow authors to add their final versions of articles, i.e. post peer review, to repositories - you can use the SHERPA RoMEO site (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php) to see what individual publishers or journals allow you to do.  Under Green OA you can therefore continue to publish in the same high-quality journals that you have always published in but you can also take advantage of the benefits offered by OA, i.e. your research is made available to everyone that wants or needs to read it rather than just the folk that can afford the subscriptions.

It would be great if we could get to a point where researchers, publishers and funders just agree that open access to the results of research is a good thing (isn't it?) and then we can start to work on a mechanism to get us there that works in the best interests of science; if that could also address the concerns that I keep hearing about the current peer review system and how we measure impact then so much the better.  Ultimately, as the people that do the research and produce the content that publishers want to publish researchers potentially have a huge amount of influence in that discussion but distractions, like the current discussion about costs, seem to keep getting in the way of this.

Just a thought,

Lorna



Ms Lorna Mitchell
Head of Library Services, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Tel: +44 (0)131 248 2850



-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Heads
Sent: 25 October 2013 10:16
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Fwd: Fwd: open access

Hi Quentin,

The study you cited found an average fee of $US 906, but their survey included many local journals. Decent international journals charge more, e.g. PLoS One is $1350, BMC Evol Biol is $2060. I've never paid page charges in my life and as I don't have one of Paul's typical research grants of half a million I certainly won't be publishing in these journals.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 10:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Fwd: open access
To: Quentin Groom <quentin.groom at br.fgov.be>


The study you cite found an average fee of $US 906, but their survey included many local journals. Decent international journals charge more, e.g. PLoS One is $1350, BMC Evol Biol is $2060. I've never paid page charges in my life and as I don't have one of Paul's typical research grants of half a million I certainly won't be publishing in these journals.


On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 9:28 PM, Quentin Groom <quentin.groom at br.fgov.be>wrote:

> Michael,
> the belief that Open Access cost thousands of dollars is a myth.
>
> See Solomon, D. J. and Björk, B.-C. (2012), A study of open access 
> journals using article processing charges. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci., 63:
> 1485-1495. doi: 10.1002/asi.22673
> Although this article is closed access the abstract tells you enough.
>
> Also see a summary at http://t.co/TJURqTfmQy
>
> Regards
> Quentin Groom
>
> Michael Heads wrote:
> > 'If you look at less wealthy countries like low and middle income 
> > countries,  they really really struggle to get access and so that's 
> > a
> real
> > impediment that prevents researchers in those countries from being 
> > able
> to
> > either contribute or do world class research'. So if you charge 
> > thousands of US dollars to publish one paper that will help them contribute?
> >
> >
> >
> > 'Even with  my brother starting the public library of science...' - 
> > so no conflict of interest there then...
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 7:49 PM, Donat Agosti <agosti at amnh.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Here is a splendid clip on open access, well worth to spend a 
> >> couple of minutes
> >>
> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5rVH1KGBCY#t=170
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Enjoy, and think about what it means for our domain
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Donat
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >> Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Dr. Quentin Groom
> (Botany and Information Technology)
>
> National Botanic Garden of Belgium
> Domein van Bouchout
> B-1860 Meise
> Belgium
>
> ORCID: 0000-0002-0596-5376
>
> Landline; +32 (0) 226 009 20 ext. 364
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>
> Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.
>



--
Dunedin, New Zealand.

My recent books:

*Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics.* 2012.* *University of California Press, Berkeley.

*Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Available January 2014. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.



--
Dunedin, New Zealand.

My recent books:

*Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics.* 2012.* *University of California Press, Berkeley.

*Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Available January 2014. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.

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