Dear Jane, Thanks for raising the question about open access.
ESA is pleased to have a long track record of making many of its resources freely available to a wide audience. As our letter notes, ESA freely shares: - The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America - Issues in Ecology - A featured articles in each issue of the four peer-reviewed subscription journals that ESA publishes - All special issues of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Ecology, and Ecological Applications - The "Reports" section of Ecology and the "Communications" section of Ecological Applications - Ecological Archives - All ESA journal abstracts - Ecosphere, a rapid-publication, online only, author pays, open access journal (most recent journal, started in 2010) Our policy of allowing authors to freely post their papers online is longstanding and our permissions policy has always been very liberal in order to promote use of research articles for educational purposes. ESA, like many other publishers, is continuing to experiment with ways that papers can be made more rapidly and widely available. But it is important to keep in mind that publishers invest significant time and resources to produce peer-reviewed journals that analyze, interpret and report on research results. In addition, our subscription revenue supports other functions of ESA such as our public policy and education initiatives, that are also important to our community. Open access fees--at least at levels that would be acceptable to authors--would not cover the costs of these other ESA functions. Cheers, Nadine Nadine Lymn Director of Public Affairs Ecological Society of America 1990 M Street, NW Suite 700 Washington DC 20036 202.833.8773 ext. 205 202.833.8775 Fax ---------------------------------------------- www.facebook.com/esa.org: "Like" the new ESA Facebook page, ask friends/colleagues to do the same. http://twitter.com/#!/esa_org: "Follow" ESA on Twitter. ESA eStore: Now available: "An Ecologist's Guidebook to Policy Engagement." Fellow Ecologgers, Have people read ESA's response to a proposed requirement that the results of federally funded research be publicly available, possibly after an embargo period? It's available here. http://www.esa.org/pao/policyStatements/Letters/ESAResponsetoPublicAccessRFI2011.pdf I have to say I find this response somewhat disappointing. While some of the concerns raised in it are certainly valid, I believe it underestimates ecologists' desire to read an interesting new paper now rather than later. Also, kudos to ESA for allowing authors to freely post their papers online, something I relied on when I didn't have university journal access, but how is this financially different from open access? ESA's 2009 financial statement (the latest available online) may be of interest. http://www.esa.org/aboutesa/docs/FS2009.pdf Thoughts? Jane Shevtsov -- ------------- Jane Shevtsov Ecology Ph.D. candidate, University of Georgia co-founder, www.worldbeyondborders.org "She has future plans and dreams at night. They tell her life is hard; she says 'That's all right'." --Faith Hill, "Wild One"
