It is Open Access Week and I realised that many of us scientists do not even know what Open Access is about or what it is good for. Some have a vague idea that it means that one has to pay for publishing an article. How weird is that??!? But is it? Please take 5 minutes to read and some more to think about it. Then discuss it (if you want at the bottom of this post) and inform anyone that does not know, yet. Finally, take your time to make your existing publications available on your institutional server!
This is how the current system works: Our salaries are paid by tax payers, but our research results are not accessible to them. We transfer the copyright to the publishers and they naturally do not work for free. As a consequence, the same tax payers have to pay again for our subscriptions, so that we have access to our OWN articles. But only us, not them! Therefore society has no access to the results it finances and has to rely on science journalism. But even science journalists often have no access to the original articles, but only to a press release. Isn’t THAT weird?
But even if you think society does not need access to scientific literature, because they will not understand it anyhow. How often do YOU have problems to quickly access the article you are interested in? How often do the corresponding authors ignore your request for a reprint of their article. And how often do you realise that you wasted your and others time (and again taxpayers’ money) to get an article through NEBIS when you finally read it? How do you think scientists work whose institution does not have the money for subscriptions and/or a service like NEBIS. Some of them beg for our help here.
So maybe it is not so weird to pay the publisher in advance for his service – and thus save the subscription fees on the other end for everybody. Maybe it is right to grant everyone access to the results of our work. Maybe it is our duty… but also our benefit! Our research will be more visible and is more likely to be cited. Even better: It is possible to make already published articles available on institutional and non-profit servers (like RERO DOC in Fribourg). Publishers like Elsevier, Wiley, Springer and many others allow this kind of archiving.
Now take your time and ask the responsible person at your institution (e.g. openaccess@unifr.ch in Fribourg) for help or convince your supervisor to do so. Soon everyone will be able to enjoy your work. Just like mine.