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

[Andrea Zanni]

2011/3/15 Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at yahoo.com>

> > I've been involved with open
> > access journals  as a professional
> > activity from the start of the movement, long before I
> > joined Wikipedia. There has been only limited success.
> > Though there are almost ten thousand open access journals, 95% of them
> are
> > either very small or very unimportant, and  in almost all fields
> > of study, none or almost none of the important journals are open access:
>
> This is my experience too; thanks for pointing it out.


I also think this is true, but I wonder how much the current, established
process of scholarship
is driving high quality articles towards "closed access": as I said before,
OA is mainly librarian-driven, because researchers and professors are much
more worried about
their career and tenure (it's no judgement, just a statement), so they
struggle to publish in high quality journals.
I think it is very difficult to change the whole environment of scholarship,

and just pointing out the virtue of being open is not enough if not
supported by real benefits
regarding tenure and career.
I personally believe that the Wikimedia movement should ally with OA
movement (i just don't know how ;-),
also tho change this situation.
Open access to reasearch and science is open access to culture and
knowledge, we perfectly match.

Aubrey