[Foundation-l] Access to academic journals (was Re: Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser)

[Fred Bauder]

> Probably the biggest victory to date for the OA movement was a mandate
> adopted by the U.S. NIH which stipulates that all the research funded by
> the NIH (which amounts to approximately $29 billion annually) is now
> made freely available through PubMed Central
> (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/). Now the OA movement in the U.S. is
> trying to extend this type of mandate to all federal research funding
> agencies with budgets over $100 million. Likewise, there are projects
> underway in other countries to advocate for similar policies, including
> an open letter recently announced which targets UK funding councils
> (http://tinyurl.com/64v9nvc). And finally, in addition to federal
> research funding agencies, the OA movement also works with universities
> to advocate for the adoption of institutional mandates which stipulate
> that all  research produced by those affiliated with a university or
> faculty be made freely available (see OA policies adopted by several of
> Harvard's Faculties http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/).
>
> So some progress, but much more to do!
>
> Melissa

This approach should be quite productive in the long run.

"JSTOR is a not-for-profit service" to say nothing of most holders of
substantial archives. Nevertheless the expenses of digitizing information
and distributing it must be met.

Fred