Cultural Research

Open Access Publishing Pathfinder: Page 3

Movers and Shakers

As you read various sources on the open access movement, you may notice that certain projects appear repeatedly as initiators or examples. Though the list grows ever longer, mention should be made of organizations that represent multiple participants. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is an important joint effort established by the Association of Research Libraries. Another important gathering point has been the Budapest Open Access Initiative, endorsed by representatives from an international range of organizations.

Since the sciences have been in the forefront of open access publishing, science, technical, and medical projects have been the most visible. The Public Library of Science is, in many ways, the flagship of scientific and medical open access publishing. Another well known effort, BioMed Central, has published over one hundred open access journals in science and medicine.

Start Your Own Journal

As you become more familiar with the terrain of open access, you may find yourself stricken with an inexplicable desire to join the fray. If so, groups like the Budapest Open Access Initiative have provided relevant resources such as the Open Access Journal Business Guides.

Another possibility is working with an open access publisher such as BioMed Central who has a handy page for those who want to Start a Journal With BioMed.

If you do it yourself, many of the issues you'll be facing involve nonprofit online publishing. SPARC has produced Declaring Independence, a guide for creating scholar-run journals, and Gaining Independence, a planning guide for nonprofit electronic journals. You may also wish to consult Tools and Resources for Online Journals and Editing, to link to a wide variety of resources for online publishing.

Keep Track of Developments

Although developments in open access publishing are occurring rapidly, keeping up is not as difficult as one might think. One useful source for following developments in open access is Open Access Now, an online journal from BioMed Central.

By far, the best tool for tracking daily developments is Peter Suber's blog, Open Access News. Every day Suber posts multiple news items with brief commentary and the posts are available as an RSS newsfeed.

If that's too much news for you to handle, Suber also produces SPARC's monthly Open Access Newsletter. You can read it online or subscribe for email delivery. It's the longest newsletter I receive and would be a great source for those who simply want to follow developments without becoming a total open access geek.

Peter Suber also provides a glossary of terms, Guide to the Open Access Movement, as well as a historical perspective, Timeline of the Open Access Movement.

A growing collection of relevant links can also be found at netweed: Open Access. netweed is another project of mine. If you are interested in discussing open access, the Cultural Research project or netweed, please contact me at: clydesmith(at)culturalresearch(dot)org

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Clyde Smith can be reached at: clydesmith(at)culturalresearch(dot)org