The New York Academy of Medicine meeting "Freedom of Information The Impact of Open Access on Biomedical Science" http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/conference.asp
was fascinating. Although it was put on by BioMed Central, it had almost nothing about BioMed Central on the agenda. Fiona Godlee, after multiple requests, did explain their ideas and model to us, but for a meeting to bring visibility to themselves, they maintained a very low profile. You could claim that they set the agenda, literally, and could have or should have invited known proponents of other models. But very few of us actually stuck to our assigned topics, and everyone took the "bully pulpit" to state their positions. When Harold Varmus opened the program, he clearly outlined that we should be experimenting now with various models (and be sure to study what we are doing) - no one suggested there was only one model to follow. (Except perhaps the entrenched publishers! :-) I must say though that the issue of author self-archiving was not discussed in great length. I mentioned it certainly, along with the whole problem of copyright transfer, but the majority of the attendees (being from the publishing world) were focused on the questions of cooperation with PubMed Central, participation with CrossRef, and the economic uncertainties of the open access world. One fascinating point came across that we are all aware of but I suspect is more important than we'd like to admit, at least in the biomedical world. Pat Brown said the reason authors are not flocking to the open access alternatives currently available is because it is like a rat who has always lived in a cage. Just because the cage door is open does not mean the rat will immediately want to escape the only world they've known. Peter Singer (U Toronto) said the reason the rat will stay in the cage is that is where their food and water are and have always been. Until we ensure that scientists and scholars will receive the same level of recognition for publishing in open access worlds, e.g., BioMed Central, then they will stay in their proverbial cages. Despite the incredibly narrow view on this issue from the New England Journal of Medicine, few medical authors would turn down the chance to publish there, even with its restrictive attitude, compared to the unknown recognition associated with something like BioMed Central. We are all self-serving creatures in our own way. I'm told they will put the proceedings of the meeting on the web. Several people asked me for a copy of my "slides" (Powerpoint presentation on disk), so I will be making that available for downloading shortly. __________________________________________________ Barry P. Markovitz, MD Pediatric Anesthesiology/Critical Care St. Louis Children's Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine email: markov...@kids.wustl.edu WWW: http://PedsCCM.org voice: 314-454-6215 fax: 314-454-2296 ___________________________________________________