A non-US non-UK perspective on OA (Open Access)

Abstract

Open access is being talked about, and implemented, around the globe, by everyone from the U.N. to individual authors, editors, and publishers, and collaborative groups. As of October 2004, requests for a government mandate for OA had gone forward not only in the U.S. and the U.K., but also Croatia. The Scielo (Scientific Electronic Online) collections of Latin America are very substantial, fully open access journal collections. In the developing world, OA is seen not only as the best means to access the research results of others, but as an opportunity to contribute their own scholarly research findings. Outside the U.S. and the U.K., profits from scientific publishing are not common, and subsidies are not unusual. The author predicts that the present slow but steady growth in institutional repositories will be replaced in the near future by dramatic growth.