Open Access: what does it mean for STI distribution?

Abstract

The Open Access movement has been with us in various disguises for the last decade or so. Initially driven by the idealistic notion that technology would free us from the Faustian grip of the academic (paper) publishers by offering a cheap and superior alternative, it is now slowly realized that the 'old' system is remarkably more robust than originally thought and that publishers do offer (some) added value after all. Fuelled by the 'serials crisis', for which, conveniently, the (commercial) publishers are blamed, it has managed to make converts in the library world as a liberating solution to their budgeting problems and those who caused them. The reality is, however, that the movement has failed to bring about its utopia and the most promising prospects are currently experimenting with business models that show some fundamentally flaws, both from a financial and from an author incentive point of view. The speaker will argue that the access situation has improved dramatically over the past 7 years and that there is little evidence that the current players (authors, readers/users, librarians, publishers etc.) are dissatisfied to such an extent that the Open Access revolution will fill the deeply felt need it claims to do. The textual version of this presentation at the Conference "Open Access to Scientific and Technical Information: State of the Art and Future Trends" (Paris, 23-24 January 2003) was published with the title 'Open Access: Marginal or core phenomenon? A commercial publisher's view' in "Information Services and Use", vol. 23 (2003), issue 2-3, p. 93-98.