On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 12:20:25 -0500, Albert Henderson wrote: > The author-pays open access ideal, which delivers > nothing, has been fostered by too many non- > researchers whose stated goal is the elimination of > publishers and library costs.
The principles propounded for author charged open access sounded quite promising initially and I was the first author to send a manuscript to, and which was published (free) in, BMC Nuclear Medicine. However my support for author charged open access has waned since then and now I strongly believe that author charged open access should be discontinued. The reason is quite simple. As authors, even from so called affluent countries, (I am in Kuwait) research costs billed to authors cannot be borne as in many countries, unlike in the West, there is no organized system of institutional support for rersearch. Open Access will then be limited to either the "rich" researchers, or those backed by an institutional system. For the majority of clinicians, who do high quality research on their own, the added publication costs of open access will be a major stumbling block to research output. I would suggest a system like that of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism as the way to go. All research after 1 year of publication becomes open access. That within 1 year is not open access. There are no author fees. This should be the face of open access, a way out for both authors and researchers. Myself and my colleagues have decided never to send a manuscript to author charged open access again (unless of course in the rare instance of someone turning up to pay for it). I look forward to the responses generated by this message