[X] My Assistant

[Antdoghalo]

Why does almost every science journals publicatons have to be purchased.
This includes Elsevier, Linkinghub, AAS, and a few others others.
Whats the point of science journals not allowing access to their published articles.
Is this anti access problem a protocol of theirs.

Only LPI is being nice and allowing access.

[helvick]

Don - P2P sharing of some academic\research papers is already happening on a fairly wide scale, the one example I know of where it has reached critical mass is amongst medical students. The medical journals may operate under a different model but the fact that students at schools where direct access to good libraries should mean that they have relatively easy access to the papers in question have taken to indicates to me that the current model is under fairly severe pressure.

The issue is certainly complex - it's easy to say that the information should be freely available but someone has to pay for the time it takes to compile, review and organize it, and then cover the costs of publishing it in a trustworthy manner. Even if the costs of publishing on the 'Net are much smaller than the old dead tree method, there are still some costs. For all its flaws the current system at least distributes those costs to consumers of the end product in some fashion, and as NickF points out if the existing model were to magically disappear then those costs (and the workload) would probably fall to the researchers which is a poor use of their limited resources of time and budget IMO.

I'm hopeful that we'll see some emerging standards, or policies\practices that allow for a transition to a system where at a minimum "mature" research papers become part of a public archive before the trend that's being seen in the medical journal articles becomes more widespread. If that happens then the ensuing battle is likely to make legitimate access harder for those of us who aren't happy to participate in a Napster for Research papers.

[Juramike]

I think the whole industry is changing.

Google Scholar (freeware) is already starting to put many of the proprietary search engines (SciFinder - expensive license) into heavy competition.

Free access will drive the market, and reference checking, quickly towards the open access papers.

In my own field of chemistry, finding a recipe in a patent used to be incredibly painful. Now with reaxys (still requires a license), the 1 paragraph patent experimental pops-up instantly in the search engine. Most chemists now prefer using the quickly-available instant patent recipe from reaxys to having to log in to the library, drill through the innumerable menus and dig out the desired literature recipe. Easy access to the patent literature was a total game changer.

I already have a mental list of which journals I can get easily for free, which I need to log in for library access, and which I'll have difficulty getting.

For example, The Journal of Nepal Chemical Society, although relatively obscure, gets my thumbs up for open easy access. If I ever see an article in that journal listed as a relevant reference, that will be my first stop over the more "traditional" chemistry journals.

Never underestimate the activation energy required for those few extra mouse clicks to log in to a library or subscribed website.

[tharrison]

After a year all articles should be freely available, with no waiting time for articles resulting from US taxpayer funded projects.

I agree with this. While I understand there are costs associated with publication, I believe that the taxpayers have a right to see what is being done with their money, and therefore they should be able to easily and freely access any journal articles based on research funded by taxpayer money. The journals could still make their money via page charges, subscriptions from those who want immediate access or paper copies of the journals, international (non U.S.-taxpayer) customers, etc. The National Research Council of Canada, for example, provides free access to a number of Canadian scientific journals if you access them from a Canadian IP address. Journals like The Mars Journal cut costs by having authors format their papers themselves and only publishing online (with an extra charge if you'd like to order paper copies). A lot of people in the planetary field grumble about wanting nice bound copies of journals to keep on their shelves, but many universities are switching to online-only journal subscriptions, and I certainly prefer to only print the articles I need rather than cluttering up my office with journals!

[belleraphon1]

Starting in the mid 70's, when library photocopiers got decent, I would hit the magazine stacks and copy articles on unmanned space news. Just about everything Jon Eberhart wrote in Science News I made copies of. I lost all these accumulated notebooks in a house fire in 1990. Until the mid 90's, the only way to get decent information from these missions was to WAIT weeks and months for the weekly and monthly science journals and then sift through the years as data was published in the academic journals.

I completely understand the dilemna of academic journals. We live in a world of instant access (not always good - who has the time to just PONDER anymore). We WANT it now! But I think a good compromise is to open these articles to free access after a certain proprietary period. And seriously, if you REAllly want an artcile, usually there is a way to get access. Just takes some searchin and maybe a trip to your university library.

Craig

[monty python]

Just about everything Jon Eberhart wrote in Science News I made copies of. I lost all these accumulated notebooks in a house fire in 1990.

Craig

Sorry you lost those reports. Science News lost a lot when he left. I Think I still have some of those issues.

We are so spoiled getting almost real time pictures from space.

Brian