Stevan Harnad wrote:
The rate of new OA journal start-ups is not likely to increase substantially, because the literature is already journal-saturated, and there are few new journal niches. Most OA journal growth is hence likely to come from the conversion of existing TA (toll-access) journals to OA, in one of three ways: (1) The journal remains TA, but makes its online version OA. (2) The journal abandons the TA cost-recovery model and adopts the OA (author-end) cost-recovery model. (3) The journal's editorial board and authorship -- hence, effectively, its title -- defect to an OA publisher.
There is [yet] another reason why self-archiving is not only highly desirable, but necessary as one of the means to achieve open access: [It] is because some of the open access journal publishing models - new journals, defections - would only cover present and future publications, and never make accessible past publications. In order to ensure maximum access to the previously published literature, self-archiving is not only the best option, but for a great deal of the literature, may be the only option. Would self-archiving increase impact even for articles that have passed their normal citation peak, as they find a new audience? This might vary with discipline. In every discipline, there are classic articles and less-researched areas where even older articles still have current validity. Plus, of course, access to the full range of literature is needed for historical studies, studies of the scientific process per se, etc. Self-archiving has other advantages besides open access per se. For example, institutional repositories can potentially form a cohesive picture of the institution's research output as a whole; and I predict that a well-developed institutional repository filled with high-quality research output, will further add to the prestige of researching organizations in the future, in the eyes of everyone from key stakeholders to the best potential grad students and future faculty to the public at large. Authors who also self-archive on their own web sites will have a form of collected works, which for active researchers will enhance their reputations and enrich their CVs. This is not meant to discourage open access journal publishing. There is more than one road to open access, and the two are not mutually exclusive at all. The ideal just might be to publish in an open access journal, and self-archive too. a personal opinion by, Heather G. Morrison Project Coordinator BC Electronic Library Network ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Phone: 604-268-7001 Fax: 604-291-3023 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.eln.bc.ca
